The Red Pharma Conspiracy
by ricca
Summary: Set nine months after the Peachtrees bust, a routine double homicide leads Judges Dredd and Anderson to uncover something much more sinister than mere murder.
1. Chapter 1

_AN: I am so excited to be posting this! I started writing it pretty much right after I left the theater of Dredd 3D, but only recently got enough of the outline stabilized to feel comfortable beginning to post. Been a long time fan of the comics and I absolutely fell in love with the movie. All content belongs to original creators, I'm just playing nicely with other folks' toys. Reviewers will have adoration lavished upon them. Several minor errors corrected as of 3/22 with deep gratitude to Darth Gilthoron for bringing them to my attention.  
_

* * *

They say every city is a living breathing thing; it's alive and it has a soul. Anyone who sincerely believes this has never laid eyes on Mega-City One. It's a dead city that just isn't smart enough to stop moving, built on ruins of an old world that history has forgotten. Home to 8o0 million people crammed on top of each other, trapped between the Black Atlantic and the irradiated Cursed Earth; out of work, out of luck, and just looking for a reason to take it out on you. From space you can see the oily cloud of smog stretching from New York to Virginia, pierced here and there by towering Mega-Blocks. Up close they're as good as a city in their own right, holding populations anywhere from 50,000 to 90,000. Too close, you can't see the top of the structures, they just disappear into the sky, but you can see the broken windows, the graffiti, the litter, and the corpses of two woman slumped in a corner in a tangle of limbs and yellow hair.

Two Judges pull up to the small sad pile of human, stern and austere in their black leather suits and helmets and Lawmaster motorbikes, the slighter figure tugging her helmet off and shaking her halo of blond hair free as she dismounts. She balances her symbol of office on the seat then kneels by the dead women as the accompanying Judge stands back, surveying the surrounding boulevard. With respect and dignity, she pries an eyelid open, sniffs mouths hanging slack, and glances over the deep bruising around thighs, arms, and necks before standing, her analysis complete. She engages the communicator in her glove, "Control, this is Anderson. Send the meat-wagon; we've got a double homicide on Second West by Westerly Block." For a moment, she closes her eyes, feeling out for a mind which carries the dark smears of rape and murder; the street is clean of that particular crime, and she opens her eyes, looking up at the impenetrable black visor of her colleague. "He's inside."

Judge Dredd doesn't even bother to nod in acknowledgement, simply loosens his Lawgiver in the holster on his thigh and takes point in front of the grey steel door at the end of the alley. Anderson hits the panel, falling in at his side as they enter the crowded interior, shop keepers and hawkers and customers falling silent on their approach and resuming their arguing and bargaining as the two specters of justice pass by on the hunt for some other unlucky bastard. As far as Dredd is concerned, they're all guilty; he just doesn't have the time right now to figure out the specifics. He pauses when they reach the square courtyard in the center of the block, lit as much by the blinking neon signs as the dingy light filtering in from 200 floors up.

Nine months into her career as a Judge, the routine is familiar by now. Dredd takes point, and she reaches out for the perp's location. Anderson sends out a pulse of feeling, trying to make sense of the thousands and thousands of minds she can feel living stacked one atop the other. "He's on this level," She announces after a few long seconds of sorting through the thought cacophony.

Dredd considers this information, weighing the benefits of covering twice as much ground against Safety Operating Procedure 6. : Street Judges are to work in pairs to reduce risk, increase ratio of operational success, and prevent opportunities for corruption. "Go left," he orders, heading towards the right corridor, towards the warren of private apartments.

Anderson wants to insist that she take the residential section and he should take the merchant sector; she's better suited than a Norm to searching out people behind closed doors. He's hardly a Norm, she has to admit, and his methods speak for themselves. Even if they tend to gravitate towards property destruction and kicking doors obeys and moves left, all senses primed for anything or anyone looking out of place in this swarm of humanity.

The telltale sign comes from a smoky dark corner of a 2-cred noodle bar, stillness where there should be motion: a flinch or careful aversion of eyes less they attract her unwanted attention. Only a guilty man would work so hard to suppress the reflex to look away. Anderson lets her feet carry her past the cramped bar further along the hallway, focusing her telepathy on the mind behind her. He's still warm with pleasure, privately enjoying the memory of the women beneath him going limp, pulses fluttering in harmony under his palms before ceasing. Anderson pulls herself back to her body with a suppressed shudder of revulsion. "Anderson to Dredd, I found him sitting at Ting's Noodles; flushing him now." She draws her Lawgiver, weapon humming to life at her touch, and turns on her heel, marching back to the darkened restaurant just as the perp is settling his tab with a placid Hispanic woman behind the steaming serving line. The words 'Drop it, creep' are still forming on her tongue when the man catches sight of her, scattering his change and sprinting down the hall. She makes the snap decision to pursue rather than take her chance with a shot; there are too many innocent people clustered too tightly to risk it, "He's running," she informs Dredd shortly, and follows the fleeing back, civilians scattering before her like pigeons, none wanting to be slapped with a 6 month cube stint for Obstruction of Justice. The runner doesn't seem to need any assistance in planting obstacles for his pursuer as he tries to escape, turning corners randomly and kicking over anything which might slow the tailing Judge down.

However fast Anderson might be, she's unable to close the gap, unable to do anything beyond keep pace with the creep and leap over the obstacles he kicks in her direction. Burning legs and lungs are irrelevant; nothing matters but the chase and the arrest at the end. She's teased into thinking she'll catch up when he stops at a blank stretch of wall at the end of an empty hall, but it's only long enough to palm a hidden sensor, and dive through the door as it begins to creak open. Seeing her chance, Anderson reaches for one more burst of speed, throwing herself through the thick slab of steel as it begins to slide close, tucking her head as she tumbles artlessly down a steep flight of stairs, rolling to her feet and ignoring the angry throbbing of raw scrapes and bruises blooming beneath the thick black leather of her suit. She doesn't pause in her pursuit, continuing down the long dark hall, following the sounds of ragged breathing, feeling for that particular mind amid the fearful chatter pressing down and around her. Rounding a corner, she finds faint cracks of white light outline a door, and she preps herself as best she can for the blinding brightness waiting on the other side of the barrier to disorient and confuse her. Not for the first time she wonders if the benefits of wearing her helmet might sometimes outweigh the drawbacks of the blind, deaf, claustrophobic feeling that comes with wearing it. Slitting her eyes against the onslaught, she kicks the door open, taking aim at the dark figure trotting down towards the tangle of gleaming copper and white plastic machinery and their silent, careful attendants. He's slowing, and she takes the opportunity to fire a burst of rapid shots after him, sending the lab workers scattering for cover as a bullet finds its mark in his shoulder, the impact spinning him around, spattering red on the slick white tiles, but not stopping him. "Anderson to Judge Dredd; where the hell are you?" She snaps into her communicator, resuming pursuit.

"Right here," The low, rough voice carries from the other end of the room, bouncing and echoing off the clean white walls, and the perp slows again to look around for the source, before staggering onwards towards one of the many basement level exits. Tragically for the would-be escapee, there's another back clad figure waiting, Lawgiver out and ready. "Sit your ass down, punk." The heavy black gun follows the man down to the floor, where he waits, hands held submissively above his head. "Two counts of murder and resisting arrest; the verdict is guilty, the sentence is death." He pulls the trigger, and watches with cold professionalism as the criminal slumps over, a single dribble of blood spilling from the neat hole between his eyes.

That criminal well in hand, Anderson turns her Lawgiver onto the scattered scientists slinking unobtrusively towards escape routes. "Get on the floor! I promise you, the next person who moves an inch is going to be very, very sorry." It's a relief when they all obey, slow and clumsy with fright. "Control, we're going to need a transport wagon and forensics team down here." She corrals the scientists into a cluster in front of Judge Dredd. Careful to maintain her cover of the prisoners, she runs an eye over the production lines of vats, tubes, and chemical printers still holding half-printed sheets of bright blue stamps. "Buzz? Really?" She shakes her head with disbelief, such an impressive facility seems too grandiose for manufacturing such a low grade narcotic.

"Those aren't Buzz printers," Dredd jerks his head toward the complicated lines of silver and white machinery stretching along either side of the space without splitting his attention from the huddle of scientists in front of him.

Anderson shakes her head; Buzz hasn't been on the street three weeks and already Dredd is an expert. She's never quite sure how he keeps so perfectly current on crime trends, but he's never wrong, so she approaches the banks of twisted metal cautiously. They're in pristine condition; no residue in the clear silicone tubes, no fingerprints on the gleaming silver buttons and dials, etched in mysterious symbols. The raw chemicals are wrapped in blinding white, no labels or identifiers, as anonymous as the vials half-filled with oily clear liquid, sealed and cushioned in huge white crates. A faint scent wafts from the tray of open containers, and gingerly Anderson brings her nose down to it, sniffing inquisitively. It smells familiar, bitter and sterile, transporting her back in time, to a different mega-block in a different sector, one lying flush against the lead lined barricades holding the Cursed Earth and gamma radiation at bay. Injections sold to ward off the effects of radiation sickness and reduce the likelihood of suffering cancer or genetic mutation. "It's medication for the wall blocks." She informs him quietly, staring down at the stacks of crates filled with thousands of doses. "But why is it here?"

"Leave it to forensics," Dredd grunts; sure it's an interesting question, but not relevant to their jobs and therefore of zero import. Street Judges don't get involved in the whys of a crime, there are simply too many happening in a given day to ponder intentions. Every moment a Street Judge wastes wondering about motive is a moment where he's not focused on the next crime and that is unacceptable.

Anderson nods once in acknowledgement, but refuses to be distracted from her examination. Gently she pries one of the sealed vials from its nest in the transportation crate, biting through the thin membrane sealing the medicine, dripping a few drops onto the tip of her gloved finger and touching her tongue to the bead of liquid. She stares at the ceiling, working her mouth around the taste, before spitting onto the ground violently, letting the vial drop, oily contents oozing slowly onto the tiles. "It's wrong." Her voice takes on a dead, flat timbre, "Fakes, Dredd." Slowly, ominously she advances upon the scientists, Lawgiver in hand. "The penalty for counterfeiting medicinal drugs for distribution is 15 years. The penalty for distributing counterfeit medicinal drugs is death."

"Stand down, Judge Anderson!" Given a physical form, Dredd's shout could have cracked skulls. "Wait for forensics, I said." He scowls at the junior Judge until she recognizes the command and holsters her Lawgiver. Sometimes he forgets she's still greener than goop. "When's Control getting here?"

Anderson takes a deep breath in an effort to control her racing pulse; adrenaline is a simple biological reaction to stress and anger, particularly being shouted at be Judge Dredd. It's unseemly for a Judge to be anything other than perfectly in control. She doesn't have to feel very far past the frightened minds of the scientists and the stone cold mind of Joseph Dredd to find the solid, dutiful, reliable minds of the meat-wagon drivers. "They're here; Anderson to Transport Wagon Five, we're in sub-level one, east wing."

"Roger that, Judges, bring them up."

Anderson doesn't meet Dredd's eyes behind his blacked out visor; she simply starts shoving the pliant scientists into a rough formation, and moves to the back of the column, letting him head the formation up the stairs he's been standing rigidly in front of, shoving the door open to reveal the bustling street, roped off by an industrious driver against the curious onlookers. She stays vigilant at the back of the column, keeping the group within her sights as Dredd pushes the barred door of the Transport Wagon open, and silently ushers the file in.

The cheerful Wagon Driver saunters over to the two Judges leaning against the tailgate of his wagon, whistling softly at the dense square of humanity which has managed to cram itself into the trailer. "Good catch, Judges; drugs bust?"

Anderson shrugs, "There's a body for the meat-wagon down those steps, as well as the two around the other side." Her eyes flicker to Dredd for a moment before she makes a request, "Would you please ask forensics, when they get here, to make sure a copy of their report finds its way to my desk?" She smiles encouragingly at the man's quiet affirmation. "Thanks a lot. We'd better be going." She doesn't need to read him to know that behind his helmet and standard scowl, Dredd is irritated by her further delay for a request he considers a waste. She falls into step beside him as they make their way back toward their Lawmasters. "What've we got now, Control?"

* * *

The report is sitting on the desk in her tiny living quarters by the time Anderson's street shift ends. She stares tiredly at the blinking display on her desk, peeling out of her body armor as she considers her next step; no real choice at all. However terribly she might need to know the contents of the report, there are protocols that must be followed to maintain her health. It's the best feeling in the world to peel off protective black suit, and place the two out outer garments in the decontamination zone of her wardrobe, enjoying the cooler air currents playing across bare skin and sweat-damned skivvies, letting the glass doors slide shut and begin the five minute laundering process. Tiredly, she steps into her small shower unit, flicking the taps until a trickle of icy water comes dribbling out. With the aid of a small towel, she rinses off the sweat and dirt accumulated from a day of hard work, paying special attention to the minor abrasions and bruises dappling her arms and legs. The process isn't the most efficient method of attaining the necessary standard of hygiene, a few seconds in the chemical shower would be faster and more thorough, but she craves the sensations against her skin, water and rough fabric cooling and healing, something to wash the anger and fear of the day's events away.

Ablutions completed, she dries herself and eases into her chair, shifting slightly as the hard seat pressures a bruise on the back of her leg, and pulls up the analysis of the two substances discovered. The first is Buzz, all she expected and not very interesting, and she scrolls past the irrelevant information impatiently until she reaches the second section. Most of the details of the report are beyond her comprehension, but the few lines that she does understand leave her breathless with anger_. 'Compound B exhibits many properties identical to the gamma reaction-inhibitor medication 4Na2PhLz3OH5 created by Red Pharma Industries, more commonly known by its generic name, Clavax. Compound B shares a molecular structure with 4Na2PhLz3OH5, but lacks the enzyme Lysonerase rendering it completely inert..._

The last word bouncing around her head, Anderson continues to read, determined to understand the breadth and depth of the crime before suiting up and going out to destroy whoever is responsible for such exploitative cruelty. There is little else she deems important in the report, not interested in lingering over an adoring analysis of the high quality of the equipment and base chemicals. There's no debate over whether the drugs are fake, but between the dull pages of chemistry there's awe at the professional quality of the raw materials and the production line. Finished with her review, Anderson kicks back in her chair to stare at the empty void of her ceiling, reigning in her temper and organizing her thoughts. Two questions make themselves visible immediately: who is responsible and what is the scale of the operation? Her gut tells her that she won't find the responsible party by interrogating the technicians in queue to be interrogated, and thus she's better off searching the quiet corners of Meg-One for similar facilities. But first she must follow due process and see her morning's work brought to conclusion. Meditatively, she powers down her desk display, dons fresh underthings and zips back into her clean bodysuit, before heading back to the Hall of Justice.

She arrives in time to see the end of the last interrogation of the technicians: a simple question and answer process in a plain white room with a quiet Interrogator on one side of the table and the terrified worker on the other. Questions are asked, and asked again: _What is your name? What were you doing down there? Who is your boss? Do you know what the penalty for your crime is? What is your name? What were you doing down there? Who is your boss?_ The unwavering pattern repeats again and again as lies are worn away under brute repetition, responses wavering between civic helpfulness and frustration and fear until the interrogator is satisfied and the perpetrator is led to a waiting containment cube.

Dredd is there, standing squarely to attention before the glass partition separating observers from the interrogator in the center of the room amidst and apart from clusters of other witnesses. "Guilty," he says with his standard eloquence as Anderson approaches, stopping beside him.

From here she can smell the street still lingering on him; Dredd hasn't taken the time to clean up since his shift ended, and she can too easily imagine him in that sterile room, all the more terrifying and out of place as he questions the scientists. "I could have assisted with this," she tries not to sound reproachful. Telepaths are gifted in that particular regard, and she's proud of her ability to aid.

Dredd might not respond to her insistence, but she doesn't need to read him to know he's irritated with her. It's usually a safe bet with him. Psionic powers are not covered by the processes of Law, and thus he won't deal with them willingly, not in the heart of the Halls of Justice.

"Yeah, but this leaves a record; we can see it. No offense to your mutie powers." The anonymous voice carries through the hushed room, and Judge Cassandra Anderson has no response to that.


	2. Chapter 2

_A/N: Thanks everyone who followed, and extra special thanks to the heroes who reviewed! This chapter was brutal to write, and I'm still not 100% thrilled with it. The creators still own everything, I'm just playing in their sandbox. Chapter edited 3/31/13 for clarity, coherence, and characterization. _

The case of the fraudulent medicine consumes Cassandra's every waking moment. It's completely inappropriate to take this level of personal interest in work that isn't hers, and she suspects her superiors are loading more work onto her to keep her distracted. More paperwork, more patrols, more supervisory roles of the most junior cadets leave her with precious little time not devoted to basic functions of living. Too bad all their good intentions, extra work and exercise can't keep her unruly mind from wandering in unwanted directions. There are too many quiet moments where her body moves on autopilot and her thoughts are free to roam back to the underground manufacturing facilities and empty headed technicians and the piles of false medication.

She'd die before admitting it, but it's that last detail which keeps her up at night. Out of all the possible chemicals that might be counterfeited, Clavax should have a highly unfavorable profit margin. Expensive even to fake, cheap by Norm standards and dear only to the oppressed and impoverished communities by the Wall. The only victims of the fraud would be mutants; and there are plenty of citizens and judges who would view the whole affair as a victimless crime. Judges don't patrol the mutant blocks or enclaves; preferring to interact with the not-quite-citizens exclusively in terms of chasing them back to their place when desperate raids make it beyond the barricades. She's the first mutant judge, all too aware of the stigma that marks her in the eyes of many; she can't ignore the community she was born into the way everyone else does.

So she devotes every spare moment to learning about the monstrous entity that is the pharmaceutical industry in Mega City One: Red Pharma. Minutes snatched from other high priority activities she spends trawling reports and histories for information about the monopolistic corporation which had devoured all competition and is now the entirety of the legitimate drug industry. Factoids don't help, and for all her dedication she finds herself going nowhere; a single incident isn't a pattern and her details are irrelevant without a bigger picture. She can't give up on the case, this can't be a stand alone incident, it doesn't make any sense, but her current trajectory is unsustainable. There's little to do except refocus her energy and keeps her ears pricked for any relevant gossip. Her chance will come, and when it does she'll be ready.

Another day, and Anderson finds herself assigned the traffic beat in Sector 2, accepting the with only a private grumble. All parts of the Law are equal, the lesson is pounded into Cadets from their first moments in Academy, but the quiet consensus among Street Judges is that traffic shifts are equal only to paperwork, and outstrip all other fields of Law in tedium. All Judges are on the rota for Traffic patrols, it's just impossible to imagine the great Judge Fargo striding heroically through the heavily congested streets of Mega City One, dispensing fines and assigning forfeitures for the good of the city.

Anderson finds her pace in the work, bringing some semblance of order to the sector through her stern presence behind the damnable helmet. In all other things she prefers being bareheaded, but the constant intimate proximity with so many barely civil strangers makes her crave the anonymity behind the black visor and its dampening effects on her psychic abilities. Obstruction of Traffic, Reckless Endangerment, Carjacking, Failure to Meet Primary Mechanical Standards, Use of Hover Device in Earthbound Zone... there are hundreds of possible traffic violations and millions of violators, her presence feels like sticking her thumb in a sieve to stop the leaking.

"Control to Anderson; report for backup by the corner of Bridge and Asbury. Intercept suspect fleeing toward east exit."

"Roger, Control, on my way." It's hard not to smile as she returns to her Lawmaster, revving the bike's massive fission engine before rocketing down the boulevard, weaving around clunkers and the unfortunate speed mobiles stuck eating their exhaust. Her fat tires swallow the long swathe of congested street, and its seconds before she halts at the intersection, letting her bike idle as she checks the status of the runner, a small dot navigating across the blueprints superimposed on her view, making its way directly to the service entrance to her left. "Anderson in place," she informs Control and places a small slime trap before the narrow egress and begins the count down as her target draws closer. Three... two... one. A man bursts through the narrow side door, loses his footing to the viscous coating lubricating the sidewalk. Momentum carries him on his knees, past the amused Judge Anderson, and he scrambles to regain his footing until 130 pounds of dedicated Judge lands squarely on his back, expertly applied submission hold reducing his chance of escape to nil.

Her heart pounds, reveling in the activity after long hours of tedium, and Anderson waits for the mandated fifteen seconds after the creep beneath her goes limp before releasing her elbow around his throat. She's snapping cuffs on the unmoving man when one member of the team arrives, cautiously navigating around the slick pavement.

"Good catch, Judge Anderson, thanks." The stocky Judge speaks quietly into his communicator, and takes Anderson's space beside the perp, completing the restraints.

"Just doing my job," She smiles cheerily and tugs off her restricting headgear for an unimpaired view of the latest addition to the Iso-Cube population. Her visor had tinted the plain white coverall he wore with a stylized red X on the breast pocket, and something, observed quickly then forgotten, niggles in the back of her mind. Running a gloved hand through her sweat-matted hair, Anderson turns slowly, surveying the street until... there. A second anomalous element: blinding white truck sparkling on the dingy street. White suit, white truck. "Did you find anything odd inside?" She queries the attending Judge, drifting toward the vehicle as her curiosity exerts gravitational pull on her body. She surveys the still transport carefully as she closes the distance; perfectly parked in a legal spot, a full 10 minutes displayed on the parking meter. It might be the single most suspicious thing she's seen this week; not even Dredd made judgements on parking meter non-compliance. The hatch is locked, but the driver's door isn't, so she hops in , swinging around the bucket seats and shuffling, half bent, to the cargo area. The dome light illuminates the heavy white crates anchored to the sides. Unmarked white packaging, and she's not imagining the antiseptic smells of laboratory equipment hanging in the still air currents.

Grimly, she hops out of the truck, slamming the door behind her, and returning to the Judges standing guard over the small huddle of men and women in white lab coats, the white clad driver by their feet. "Make sure the truck gets back to the labs, too." She doesn't wait for them to respond, not entirely sure if they'll follow orders from her, and not sure if its her place to be giving them in the first place. Inside, it's not hard to trace the runner's path in reverse, back to a yellow barrier to the lab itself, in disarray but still entirely recognizable as a copy of the counterfeit Clavax facility.

Anderson floats through the last hours of her traffic patrol, a model Judge on the outside and walking on air internally. With patience and luck, she'll be able to find patterns now, common recurrences and significant differences, even confidential data on their distribution network. Unmarked trucks, unmarked driver, unmarked packaging and hopefully all the more traceable due to crisp uniformity in the dirty messy chaos of Big Meg. It's an incredible step for her case, a transition from her paranoid fantasy, as some might think of it, into the realm of Law, with the strength of Control;s information and the power of Street and maybe even the approval of High Council in time. She has to laugh at her silliness; juvenile daydreams are all well and good in the safety of her head, but not something she'd ever want anyone else learning of. Ever.

Gaining access to the reports from the second bust proves easier than she would have though. It's hardly difficult to find an off duty Control Judge, and simple enough to schmooze with them until they're comfortable helping out with her request. _It's common knowledge that the street gets under your skin, makes you a little odd; everyone needs a hobby, right?_ Anderson picks up the thread of thought from the man she's swapping egregious lies with over a cup of synthcaff and retreats from the thought with a flicker of guilt. She could have picked the location of the files and the passwords protecting them out of his, or anyone else 's, head. It might have been faster, certainly it would have been less obtrusive, but as she snickers at a cunning observation he articulates with a wave of his glass, it would have been wrong. She swore, as a part of her graduation from Cadet to Judge, that she would hold inviolate the private thoughts of those around her. Not only are allies an assetin themselves; she finds herself enjoying the change in role.

The whir of activity doesn't last more than a few days, and Anderson is confronted with the unpleasant reality that large crimes sometimes move as slowly as Justice does. She bottles the disappointment tightly up inside, the lack of follow-up doesn't bother her friends behind Control desks, it would be unseemly for her to overreact at this stage. Whoever is behind the labs has to make a move again, it brings her a small feeling of pleasure to think of the scummy assholes behind the exploitation hemorrhaging money out of every orifice. They have to act, and soon; all she can do is wait and watch and do her duty.

* * *

Dusk falls and she meets her partner for night patrol in the garage. Dredd coasts up as she dons her helmet and swings a leg over her Lawmaster, not responding to her greeting. Nine months and his lack of acknowledgement is something she's come to accept as standard operation procedure; just him being Old Stoneface. Darkness falls as they coast through the buzzing streets lit by neon signs, keeping their vigil against sleepless crime. Anderson reaches out, touching the hum of thoughts around her, thousands of minds preoccupied with large miseries and small pleasures, unhappy but ultimately peaceful. Small crimes out of sight and they have bigger fish to fry, as a panic and horror that isn't hers prickles along her awareness, held at bay by years of personal discipline. _Creep-o-clock._ She veers left sharply, cutting around her fellow drivers and kitty-cornering into a long narrow alley. She can feel Dredd on her tail, gaining despite her lack of forewarning. Her skill with a Lawmaster is nothing compared to him; he probably came out of the womb riding one. She slows and cuts the engine, letting the bike glide the last few meters before hopping off, drawing her 'Giver and dodging down a narrow gap between two buildings, shoulders scraping along the walls. She sinks to her knees is loose garbage, mentally promising to find the owners of such egregious littering and give them a stern judgement. With effort, she propels herself over the last heap of refuse, landing in a crouch behind a gang of bulky shapes cornering someone out of sight. "Stop right there, Citizens!" Her voice rips through the night, and she straightens her legs, gazing squarely down the sights of her weapon.

It's a moment before the figures move, outer ring turning towards her with deliberate lassitude. Flickering red light from a sparking sign does little to illuminate the faces between low brimmed hats and pulled up coat collars, throwing odd shadows over her night vision. A light flicks on in the building behind them, casting a pane of yellow light to fall on the trio that had been shielded from her view: an uncannily tall man, well dressed in a suit that might have been the height of fashion 20 years ago, propped on a battered cane looking up with a ratty face, annoyed at the disturbance. Behind him another bulky person in tattered long coat and floppy hat, staring flatly between gaps of stained bandaging, clawed hands restraining a motionless juve girl, shirt ripped off one shoulder, blood trickling sluggishly out of both nostrils.

Her mouth goes dry, but under the surveillance of Bandage Face's flat red eyes she lets the discomfort roll off her like water down a tarp. "Assault on a juvenile. Being out of bounds after curfew. Carrying illicit weaponry." She summons her very best Joe Dredd scowl, "Don't make me add resisting arrest."

Ugly Suit looks down at her, adjusts his cravat and twirls his cane slowly between long triple knuckled fingers. "This is legitimate business, Judge. Be on your way."

Anderson opens her mouth to reply, when one of the goons speaks over her. "Shit guys, it's little Cassie Anderson! Enjoying living with the Norms, Cass? Do they let you pretend to be something other than a freak?" One steps closer, and she can't keep her Lawgiver on both the two surrounding the Juve and the large male mutant advancing on her.

_Be cool, you've passed these simulations before_. The muzzle of her Lawgiver doesn't waver from Bandage Face, though she does toss a careless look to the advancing antagonist. "It has its perks; they smell better and they're a bit prettier." She seizes the opportunity as he takes another heavy step towards her, sidestepping his advancement and grabbing the arm cocked back to deliver a nasty hay maker in response to her taunts; leveraging down until the mutant flips, locked limb tearing out of its socket. "Resisting arrest and assaulting a Judge? You lot don't do anything by half." Her spare hand scrabbles at her belt for riot foam, pulling the tiny canister free and tossing it at the cluster already moving to violence against her. The canister bursts at their feet, foiling their movements in long sticky ribbons of quick drying material which hardens instantly, leaving them struggling helplessly against the bonded material. Anderson dances out of the way of a grabbing hand, kicking savagely and crunching wrist beneath her boot.

"Where's your sense of solidarity, Cassandra?" The cultured voice of Ugly Suit chides gently, "We just want to walk the streets with our fellow Citizens. Is that so much?" Anderson turns to follow the voice behind her, but the cane hums through the air before she can face the lanky mutant. Ozone crackles beside her ear, and the electrified blow slams into her is shoulder with a sickening thud; nerves spasm and she draws blood from the inside of her cheek, rolling as she goes down and firing up with a hand she can't feel as the ugly narrow face comes into view. A red hole opens in the antique suit, and her assailant reels back.

_Back on your feet; sensory input would just get in the way_. Mechanically, she delivers three rapid kicks to Ugly Suit's torso, flicking his cane away for good measure, and nails the running Bandages square in the back, watching him sag, lifeless, onto the black boots of Judge Dredd. She doesn't want to know what he's thinking at this moment, electing to address the catatonic Juve instead. "Juvenile out after curfew carries the sentence of 40 hours community service." The process of IDing the girl and forwarding the order to the nearest community center gives her the moment she needs to regain feeling in her arm and leg, gain control over her rioting emotions. Anger, fear, disgust; _sense of solidarity my sweet ass_. "Do us all a favor and show up, okay?" The juve gives her a bug eyed look, fumbling to push her shirt back in place, and runs off wordlessly. Anderson twists her neck and rotates her shoulder, testing her range of motion and comfort: excruciating but not debilitating. "You took your sweet time getting here."

Dredd recognizes a needling comment when he hears it, not quite the automaton he's rumored to be. It doesn't take a psychic to see that Anderson is giving vent to some appropriately small amount of distress through sarcasm. "It was an unfavorable access point; odds of successful navigation were not in my favor." It would have been hideously embarrassing to get stuck in the slender channel: ineffective and clownish. Deftly he navigates away from the topic. "Wagons're on their way. Are you fit to continue?"

From him that practically counts as a speech and the query to her well being is as much of an apology as she's come to expect. "Nothing broken," She affirms, squatting on the pavement beside the mutant who had advanced on her, flicking away the hat and bandana obscuring his features. He's not pretty, though mutants rarely are; scabby sores around mouth and nose, lice retreating into the relative safety of his hairline. Alive, but stunned from the undesirable combination of weak bones and a hard fall. Just another stranger, some sick desperate man looking for one last way to live before he died. Somehow she doubts its relief sitting cold and uncomfortable in her gut; notoriety within the mutant community can't possibly be a good thing for her.

"Delivering execution sentence without warning is against procedure."

Anderson does give voice to a tiny sigh of frustration, "Would it kill you to just ask the question? And don't think of feeding me that psychic line again." She scowls up at him, uncomfortably aware that this is a battle of wills she can't win and they have other places to be. "Perp was out of bounds, unstable and hostile. I made the call that his presence among the general population would cause severe civil unrest, and I stick by it."

"A logical assessment. Let's go."

The unexpected and explicit praise startles her. Dredd reaching down to help her to her feet is downright astonishing; black gloves meeting and then parting as she finds her balance. It's kind, almost gentle, and she shakes herself free of the imaginings as the rumbling engines of the transport wagon approaches. _Now's not the time to be losing it. _"I want to investigate the illegal dumping in that alley." Dredd falls into step beside her, and they're off on a quick detour to rouse a drunken landlord and harangue him, gleaning the names of his fellow crooks before slapping him with 6 months planet side labor. Control reroutes them to disperse a brawl, and ruin the nights of several narcotics distributors and unlicensed sex workers.

They keep the hard pace through the night, shift ending as the eastern sky begins to turn grey. Anderson's tired from a good night's work, content to drift through the nearly empty streets towards shower and bed following in the wake a plain brown truck. Something about it feels slightly odd, but it's the time where the day's deliveries and early morning errands are run, so she chalks it up to sleep deprivation. Whimsically, she reaches out to the mind of the driver, recoiling when she touches a mind painfully alert, cold, and panicking. She's endured adrenaline shots before, and this mental contact is just as jolting as any chemical injection. No one paranoid about being followed by a Judge has ever up been to anything good; and as she touches her accelerator to close a bit of distance, an air current brings a faint smell of fresh paint. Anderson can't keep the predatory smile off her face, who would paint a truck, so similar to the one she had examined recently, brown unless it was to avoid surveillance associated with plain white trucks? She lets the frenetic driver regain some space, bringing the truck's location up on the aerial map in her helmet's display, swerving away to watch the progress from afar.

"Patrol's over." Dredd's voice crackles in her radio, grouchier than typical. _Maybe even he gets tired sometimes._

"I need to check on something; meet you back at HQ." Maybe if she had thought about it, she could have phrased that in a way that wouldn't have so thoroughly annoyed him. He's probably going to give her hell later for breaking protocol; it'll be worth everything if she's right. Anything to glean a bit more information about the counterfeit medicines and the criminals organizing it. She follows the truck across what feels like a dozen sectors, but is probably only four, until it pulls to a stop in front of a ramshackle tenement. Minutes tick past until she judges the driver has had ample time to exit the vehicle and move out into the lab. Leaving her Lawmaster around the corner, she approaches the truck on foot, senses pricked for anything out of the ordinary. This time there is no easy access to the truck, all doors locked tight, but it's of little consequence. She circles once more and settles in to wait; the driver could be anywhere in the abandoned building, and it's impractical to rely on backup that doesn't exist. So she waits, concealed from the entrance by the bulk of the truck, sitting with a hunter's patience until she's rewarded by the sound of boots smacking tarmac and risks a glance around the corner. The three militiamen are a bit of a surprise, as are the two lab workers shuffling before them dragging dollies weighed down by pallets wrapped in unmarked white material. A pickup? Maybe she should fall back, follow them to the drop off location... no. They could be moving it to long term storage, it could be sent anywhere, and the final destination is not relevant. She takes her time lining up the first shot, downing her first target, but they respond faster than she had anticipated, and she only wings the second as the workers throw themselves below the line of fire and the two fighters leap in opposing directions. Shit. She moves without thinking, pursuing the wounded man across debris littered streets. Switching to rapid fire she sprays bullets to slow and hopefully wound. Her prey might be exceptionally lucky, but it's probably just body armor. It doesn't slow him down any, and after a long night she lags behind until he's lost.

Failure taunts her on the slog back to where she left her Lawmaster; why did she separate from her bike? She could have ambushed them as efficiently from around the corner as behind the truck, and the odds of pursuit's success would have been all but guaranteed. Another ugly mistake to add to her private tally. Her boots drag along the pavement as she returns to the initial scene, and it takes her a moment to process a Judge leaning patiently against the truck, boot resting casually on a bound soldier._ Shoot me, please._ She hadn't anticipated Dredd hanging around as backup, much less bagging the second runner._ Is he ever in the wrong place at the wrong time?_ She stands awkwardly before him for a moment, too caught up in her own disappointment and embarrassment to feel anything from him. Small mercy. "My apologies, Judge; thank you." She doesn't wait for the acknowledgement that won't come, kneeling by the helpless prisoner, stripping off a filthy glove and dropping it in her discarded helmet. Pressing two fingers against an exposed and slightly bloody temple, she creates a direct link and shoves her awareness into the foreign space. _Show me what you know._ He fights gamely, thoughts flickering erratically, summoning random images as she probes, but she is too angry, with herself and with his organization, to be put off. _SHOW ME_. It's a relentless assault, all raw power and zero finesse, but there's no one to grade her performance in here. _Where are you going? Who is your contact? Who do you work for? SHOW ME. SHOW ME. SHOW ME_. Cracks appear, images cut through with jagged black marks, and the information trickles in, fragmented. When the same three answers loop endlessly, she gives up with disgust. She had hoped he might be more than a third rate peon, but if he knows any more she can't break in to where he's hidden the knowledge. She exhales, opening her eyes to see her hand has moved south while she probed, and has left a definite bruise around his throat. She stands, tugging her glove back on. "I know where they're taking it."

"Tell Control," He had watched, unsure if Judge Cassandra Anderson was going to snap and murder her perp right in front of him. It wouldn't be the first time a young judge did so. She meets his eyes behind the opaque visor, definitely hostile, possible defiant. He glares right back, hard scowl engraved on his exposed face.

She can't tell if he's staring back, but it feels like it. "Anderson to Control, apprehended a creep involved in the Pharma Case. Please send transport wagon to collect." She spits out between gritted teeth, meeting Dredd's sightless stare, before obeying the unspoken command. "Have ascertained a drop location of current counterfeit delivery: 4754 Brighton, ask for Tellis." She cuts the link and bows her head in submission, awaiting her own personal judgement.

"You serve the Law." He toys with the idea of saying more, then shrugs the thought away. His policy of non-involvement with other Judges has served him well; distractions are death and he'd rather live. She's smart enough to get to the crux of his statement and she doesn't need to dig around in his head to find it.

Anderson gnaws her lip, visibly ill at ease. "I know that." She figets with her helmet before pushing it back on; unhappy with the temptation to spill her worries to Dredd._ He doesn't want to hear it, girl. Keep your feelings to yourself, you'll feel better after a shower and some sleep._


	3. Chapter 3

_A/N: Holy cow, two whole weeks since an update? There are lots of irrelevant reasons for this, but I hope this giant chapter (which is really only a half chapter) makes up for some of that. Tragically, due to splitting the original chapter, there is NO Dredd in this chapter, and for that I am well and truly sorry, but Chapter 4 will be 100% his. Until then, I leave you with Judges Anderson and Sky, who you can imagine as Charlize Theron from Aeon Flux. One last request that you review if you like it, or don't like it, or have suggestions to improve it, or want to talk about how terrible Aeon Flux was. Addendum: Tenses fixed and ambiguous details cleared up, many thanks to Darth Gilthoron.  
_

* * *

Even after the night's stresses, sleep remains elusive. Cassandra rolls over for the hundredth time, searching for a position in which her neck, shoulders and back are all comfortable. _This is utterly ridiculous_. Dully, she watches the glowing numerals on the clock roll over to 9am, while the video screen that serves as a window remains infuriatingly starry and peaceful. An explanation had been given once during her early days at the Academy: something about synchronizing internal and external cycles to maximize rest. This is the first time she's been awake to observe the discrepancy, and it irks her. She throws the sheet off and rolls out of bed, padding to the screen and trying to stare past the artificial recording to the sunlit city outside.

Her arm twitches, the subtle tingling chill lingering in her bones from earlier contact with the electro-cane. The discomfort had faded to just one of many discomforts that are part and parcel of being a street Judge. But now, in the calm quiet of rest period, it makes her teeth ache, and the memory of the lightning surging down to her heart and up to her brain persists with the same irrational fear that she would be crippled or killed. Fruitlessly she rubs the confounded limb, cradling it against her side for some degree of comfort, if not reprieve.

"Your sleeping platform has been vacant for forty-five minutes," The timepiece on the table announces in a soothing mechanical voice. "We would like to remind you that a full eight hours of rest are recommended prior to starting your shift. At this time you can say 'Sleep Pod' to reserve a Sleep Pod, or 'Negative' if you are returning to bed."

"Negative," Anderson spares a glance at the innocuous piece of machinery. It's not terribly surprising that the objects in her room have secondary functions of monitoring her biometrics. Judges are too vital to be lost to imperfect health habits. Some sensor in her toilet probably takes the measure of her excrement's' nutrient levels. Grimacing at the thought, she prods the view screen until the view changes from the starry sky to some fantastical desert vista lit by a fat moon. Idly she cycles through the options, settling on a view of the city, lit by a million tiny lights in windows glittering weakly, far away. Dozens of crimes happening out there in the darkness. Studying the faint outlines of architecture against the sky, she's forced to conclude that it's an old view. The buildings aren't quite right, she knows some have crumbled under the weight of decay and others have been built up or built over. No crimes out there that she could do anything about, justice has either been served or neglected.

Her thoughts are never terribly far from the Pharma Fakes, and her desire to know what's happening at 4754 Brighton is an ache more potent than her shoulder. Is it being investigated now? Who's on the team? Who is Tellis, and what does he know? The forced inaction grates on her. She should be out there, she knows the areas around Brighton; the alleys and dens that neither belong fully to mutants nor norms. She could blend in better than the other Judges; she could pick through the contact's thoughts, access all sorts of additional information. _What was I thinking coming back here_?

Grimacing, she rubs her temples where a headache is blossoming. She had been committed, heart and soul, to breaking procedure and running headlong after her precious lead. Then that bastard Dredd had given her the order, and she had felt compelled to obey. _To what, gain some sort of approval_? She scowls at the thought. Judge Joseph Dredd would never ever approve of her. It's a ridiculous hope to foster, and not even her pure motivation. Submitting had been an act of self preservation: everyone knows where Judge Dredd stands regarding Judges toeing the line. No one has a record like his when it comes to catching and judging other Judges. His empty black visor cares nothing for her anger, her need to see justice rained down on those who would take advantage of the weak and desperate. Being charged with insubordination and tried before the Court of Justices would be getting off easy. No one would ever accuse Dredd of suffering excessive feelings of solidarity.

It's an admirable stance to take and deep down she envies his convictions. Cutting herself off from her background had been a simple thing when she joined the Academy. Out of sight and out of mind, it had been easy to mold herself to the Cadet mindset; a great deal of training had been explicitly to that end. Training to strip individuals of their history, their identity. An inexplicable alchemy that transmuted hundreds of frightened children into a single unified force waging war against the rest of the population. She had tried to absorb the lessons about unity and shared reliance, happy to be rid of her status for good. It wasn't that easy, of course. There were rumors, sure, baseless speculation about her status as wall-dweller, that there must be something wrong hidden from view. It had been nothing but rumor until well after she graduated, after she proved her worth, and some of the reactions had been hurtful at first. That probably had undone some of the allegiance she felt toward the body of Judges, though that trust had been breached first by the squad of corrupt Judges at Peachtrees.

Judges' solidarity was a myth as wispy as the fable of mutant solidarity fed to her by the stranger with his electro-cane earlier. It was stupid to have considered herself part of either group, allied through circumstance. She had overreacted when cornered, ashamed of the perceived alliance with the mutants. It's something the other Judges weigh when they look at her. They do not trust her, badge or no, and she will always be something freakish and dangerous to them. She had wanted to make a point, to herself and to them, and it had been badly done.

But she has to live with them, these thousands of minds ranging from mild curiosity to outright loathing. She is a Judge, now and forever, and she'll take the experiences of the night and work with them. No more concern with a useless reputation. No more unprofessional obsession._ And no more screwing up basic ambushes._ She frowns at her inner critic in silent agreement. There are a limited number of times a Street Judge can get lucky. It hasn't even been a year and she's already high on the count.

"Your sleeping platform has been vacant for four point five hours." The robotic voice sounds petulant now. "Please return immediately or a sleeping pod will be reserved."

_No time like the present to act on these high ideals, right_? Snark is significantly less entertaining when you're taking potshots at yourself, and she heaves a sigh. Boothing has unpleasant side effects for everyone, feelings of grogginess and discombobulation are just things Judges are expected to endure for the benefit of maximum alertness and reflexiveness after 5 minutes of rest. There aren't any other psychics for her to compare notes with, but it leaves her abilities scrambled like breakfast proteins.

"Sleeping Pod C246 has been reserved. Please report immediately."

She rests her forehead against the display, wishing it was cool and comforting like a real window. Instead it's slightly warm with a prickle of static. "Keep your pants, or whatever, on, clock. I'm going." Mindlessly she grabs her street gear from the wardrobe, auto-piloting her way through the straps and zippers that make the leather a second skin, lacing up her boots and trudging out the door.

* * *

The havoc wrought by artificial cycles of the sleep pod on her awareness is even worse this time; minor hallucinations which fuzz the boundary between thoughts and physical appearance, and make other senses painfully sharp. It's still preferable to the alternative of going back out on patrol without a complete rest period. It's no measure of fun, though, and she keeps her head down and her mouth shut in the cafeteria before slogging into the unusually hot afternoon on assignment. Patrol with Judge Sky is a task worth looking forward to, the older woman had been a capable tutor and a good friend during their time as Cadets, and she had turned into a formidable Judge since graduation.

Judge Sky is waiting patiently by the entrance, the picture of ease despite the heat beating down on her black leather suit. "Rough night?" Her thin mouth quirks in a smile.

"Aren't they all?" Anderson shoves her hair out of her eyes and pops her helmet on. "Mutants were out looking for some fun."

The senior Judge shakes her head, "They're raiding nightly now and getting deeper into the city. We're going to have to do something eventually." She swings a leg over her motorcycle and keys the day's destination into her navigator. "Sometimes justice for one or two doesn't cut it, you know?"

"Yeah," It shouldn't come as a relief that the rumbling engines drowns out all but the most necessary conversations, but it is. After all these years and she still isn't sure where Judge Sky's sympathies lie, or if she's even aware of Anderson's unnatural abilities. Easier to match ambiguity than risk the rejection. Grimly, she forces her wandering attention on the road before her, letting the howling wind and miles of Mega-highway flow around her, temporarily rinsing away the complexities of her life.

When Judge Sky flicks her lights and veers off toward Sector 4, Anderson follows suit, accelerating through the tightly spiraling ramp and squeezing past the congested roads. The sector bustles, civilians baring arms and legs to make the most of the weather, flocking to stalls, shouting, haggling, and more or less thriving. Sky slows their pace to a crawl, scanning the dark corners where less legitimate business is conducted, and Anderson tries to wrangle her senses into feeling out for the subtle crimes hidden in the frenzy of activity. Her mind feels gritty, and the thoughts jam together, mixing into incoherence. No good. She'll have to set that toolkit aside, use the same senses of observation available to her colleagues. Human behavior patterns that stick out, suspicious movement or stillness. The distance between the two Judges widens as the crowd hesitates, then accepts the presence of these two intruders as some inevitable, but ultimately temporary, meddling.

A crime is committed in Mega-City One every six seconds. Seventeen thousand a day. The odds are astronomically low that a Judge could be on patrol for a full hour and not come into contact with a crime. It's just a question of observation. Anderson glances around the shabby structures; few crimes occur in crowded streets, fewer still in broad daylight in front of a uniformed Judge. She lets her motorcycle purr to a halt and hops off, locking it with a touch before striding into the crowd. They move around her, a school of gaudy and sunburned fish darting around to give the intruder wide birth. She can feel it, a malicious intention to mark a passing stranger and relieve them of valuables. She's quite sure it's not merely mercantile greed, too. Glancing around for the distinctive helmet of her partner, she changes trajectory, working through the crowd as the towering Judge draws attention as she shoves through the seething mass. _Wait for it, there_. As the crowd gravitates toward the spectacle of arrest, Anderson's eye is drawn to the short scrawny youth moving perpendicular to the general flow of humanity. She moves for interception, uniform and stern expression granting her easy access through the dense pack. She only needs to see bony wrist and dirty fingers brush against the back pocket of an unwary civilian to confirm her suspicion.

Unaware of his impending doom, the boy fingers a gilded lighter and two more wallets, slipping around the oblivious gawkers with practiced ease until something catches hold of his hooded vest, tugging him backwards and off balance. He squawks as he stumbles, flailing out with one arm as the other clamps down across the heavy pocket of loot. The force on his collar catches him automatically, stopping him from crashing to the pavement without relaxing the iron grip on him. Reluctantly he turns, mutinous scowl already in place.

The juve's stink-eye doesn't phase Anderson, how could it after her extended proximity with Dredd's perpetual scowl? "Six months in juve cube for pickpocketing." She delivers the sentence grimly, adjusting her hold on the greasy leather to access her glove communicator. "Got one for the transport wagons."

Judge Sky's voice, distorted over radio transmission, sounds in her helmet, "On it's way. Bring your creep over and check this out." The black gloved hand is just visible over the heads of the onlookers, gesturing her over with a wave.

Anderson cuts the link in time to evade the light fingers fiddling with a container of riot foam. Shaking her charge like a terrier, she gives the sullen juvenile a disbelieving look. "Do you want to stay in a cube until you're issued your own shaving gear?" She doesn't wait for an answer, spinning him and leveraging a skinny arm to push him forward towards Judge Sky. The crowd parts before her, closing abruptly behind her to better watch the spectacle. It's claustrophobic, curiosity and hostility streaking her vision with orange and yellow, and she breathes easier when she reaches the empty space around the other Judge. Unrelentingly, she pushes the boy down, freeing a zip tie from a pouch in her vest and securing fragile wrists behind the boy's back. "What've you got?"

Judge Sky glances at the juve and finishes securing the cuffs on the spastic man at her feet. "Drug distribution and consumption," She pitches her voice, roar carrying over the crowd. "Show's over, move along!" She frowns impassively until the crowd loses interest and disperses, voices filling the street once more. "Do you recognize it?" Roughly she stills the squirming man at her feet, pushing up his sleeve to reveal a bright blue patch over his wrist, peeling at the edges.

Scraping the thin film up, Anderson holds it to the light and sniffs, trying to match the slimy texture on her gloves and faintly artificial scent with the fitful user. "Mid grade stimulant with low grade hallucinogen? Buzz, I think they're calling the mix, now." Distastefully she scrapes the goo onto the man's shirt, wiping her hand on her pants leg for good measure.

"Oh hell no!" The sharp dressed dealer looks up at that, protesting. "Buzz is shit, man, kiddie shit. That's Jolt, hot off the press, and don't let anyone tell you differently."

"You do talk!" The visible half of Judge Sky's face splits into an unpleasant grin. "I was wondering."

Anderson lets her attention wander from the roughshod interrogation behind her, standing vigilant for the next lead. She has no idea when they can expect the transport vehicle, and it annoys her. Sure Sector 4 is somewhat off the beaten path relative to headquarters, more than halfway to the mid-southern jurisdiction, but they shouldn't have to sit here until someone comes to collect their catch. The inefficiency bothers her, and she does her best to dismiss it as just another side effect of a sub-ideal rest cycle from the morning. A single team of Judges had greater mobility than the transport trucks, but its only superior if they execute every creep they come across. Maybe it would make more sense... She aborts that line of thought prematurely. She's lucky to be a Judge, maybe if she keeps up the work and doesn't let her mind wander too much she might hope to be a good one eventually. Best to leave policy matters to those with experience and understanding of such things.

It feels like hours, but is probably closer to twenty minutes before the truck, emblazoned with the eagle of Justice pulls up to the sidewalk and the transport drivers hop out. Judge Sky hails them, escorting the dealer over to the heavy door at the back of the vehicle, delivering the sentence and initialing the paperwork. Crisply, she leads them back to the still twitching user, watching as they drag the absent man back.

"Up you get," Anderson urges her pickpocket to his feet, steadying him as he stumbles on numbed legs, escorting him to the drivers. "Pick pocketing; six months in a juve cube." She sketches her C.A. in the box beside the boy's number, passing the clipboard back. "Thanks."

"No problem, Judge." The driver secures the door, setting the locks and saunters back to the cab, leaving the Judges in a cloud of exhaust.

"Well then," Judge Sky ducks into the shadowy alley, taking advantage of the semi-privacy to pull off her helm and rake short black hair into sweaty spikes before replacing the headgear of office. "Let's see if anything's come in for Control. Indoors, preferably."

Anderson nods in emphatic agreement, "Anderson to Control, Transport returning. Anything in the vicinity that requires attention?"

"Control to Anderson, we read you. Uhm... yeah. Surveillance just flagged one of your Pharma trucks parked outside Withered Heights, forty clicks west of your current location. Please investigate."

"Got it," She tries to contain her excitement at the news. It's not a report on the morning's follow-up on the hand-off point, but it's close. The manufactures must be feeling pressure, or haven't learned of the morning's bust, or something equally unpleasant for them. "We've got suspected med forges out few miles West."

Judge Sky shrugs, walking back to their Lawmasters. "Strange choice for a forge lab; you could probably spit over the wall there." She hesitates by Anderson's Lawmaster. "Cassandra, is this about that thing you were busting ass on last month?"

Anderson feels her face heat up inside the already stifling helmet. "Yeah." It's rather embarrassing to think that the barrack's gossip channels have caught wind of her interest and carried it as far as Sky's ears. The cheery, loyal Judge is easily in her top five list of people she wants to look her best for. Prove that the extra attention and help isn't wasted, that Cassandra Anderson is a person worth keeping around. A person worth being a friend, and on a first name basis with. She knows the visor shields most of her expression from Sky's mild inquisition, but she stares at the ground anyway. "It's important to me, Corey. I couldn't just let it go because it wasn't immediately obvious who-"

"You're babbling," A long gloved finger taps under Anderson's chin, forcing her shielded face up to the gentle expression on Sky's mouth. "It's okay, relax. I'm not going to eat you. Just warn me before you do anything dangerously heroic, alright?"

The judgement she has feared isn't there, and Anderson tries to relax though the blush persists at the old reference. "Right," She exhales slowly, trying to blow the stress and flustered feelings out with the used air. She unlocks her bike, forwards Judge Corey Sky the coordinates of their destination, and eases back into the flow of traffic.

The scenery changes as their Lawmasters devour the distance. Gradually, traffic thins, trucks and cars replaced by older, sadder versions of themselves, then scooters and bicycles more fuse-tape than metal, and then nothing. The buildings shrink, skyscrapers learning on each other for support, too weary to keep their broken tops pointing upwards. Many cave inwards, shadowing the nearly empty boulevard in perpetual dusk as they meet in the middle like a shabby cathedral, arched roofs held up by some bizarre trick of physics. It's utterly nerve wracking for a person used to some degree of open sky while outside; and Anderson suspects that if it caved in now, nothing in the quadrant would be recovered. Especially not their two-dimensional corpses. She shivers and tries to focus on something beyond the terrifying architecture.

Judge Sky stops before the tallest building, a Mega-Block snapped halfway up, standing out starkly against the shattered remains of what had once been its neighbors. She takes a moment to glance over the faded sign naming the building Withered Heights, original text barely visible among graffiti. "Cheery," She grimaces at the echoes of her comment, glancing around at the vagabonds lying amid the litter. They make no response to the sudden appearance of intruders. Some of them are probably not even alive. "You sure this is the place?"

A truck is parked on the curb before the main door, blinding white against the city's dirty grey. "Yeah," Anderson stares out at the long wall, just a dark smudge peering between buildings. It's been so long since she looked on it: the heavy lead barrier that is their protection against the Cursed Earth. In this mad place, it brings a feeling of normality, and beyond the ruins around the block she can just make out the Barricade: scrap metal bolted together to separate the Muties from the Norms, delineating the Radiation Zone. Our side and your side. She blinks, trying to work the grit and distraction out of her mind. She needs to be sharp for this. "Let's go."

Anderson lets the muzzle of her Lawgiver lead them into the building, ducking around the door popped off its hinges. Sky's quiet footfalls behind her are the only source of comfort in the huge empty building. Slowly she circles the lobby, biting her tongue when a rat the size of a large dog darts out of a corner, stopping in the middle of the floor to stare brazenly at the two intruders. Behind her Judge Sky whispers a string of curses, and they both heave a sigh of relief when the rat moves on. Gunfire would have alerted the entire block to their presence, but would have been unavoidable if the mutated rodent had attacked. Wordlessly, Anderson leads back around the perimeter, hesitating a moment before deciding on their next step. "Basement first." It seems like the logical choice, nearly every other facility had been tucked away on a subterranean floor. Habit, perhaps.

The stairs, when they find them, are slick, boots sliding in every direction, and the rail, old and rusty, threatens to pop out of the brackets securing it to the wall. Drenched in icy sweat, they take a moment at the bottom of the steps to stretch aching arms and draw weapons they had been forced to holster during their precarious journey. Anderson studies the floor plan superimposed on her helmet's display, then removes the loathsome item, trying to order the ragtag sensations dancing around her awareness, glean some sense of what awaits them around the sharp corner just ahead.

"Cassandra?" Sky's voice echoes oddly through the small space, and Anderson clamps a hand over her superior's mouth as the last syllable fades out.

Flashes of imagery dance across her awareness. An issue barked. A call to action. Safeties clicked off, boots thumping in synchrony, far off but coming closer. "Up the stairs," It comes out a whisper, and she moves, clawing her way back up, seeking any small handhold to aid progress upward. She can hear it with her ears now, the echo of hundreds of boots pounding against the hard floor. Far away, but getting closer. Order, discipline, and violence.

Sky hears it to and moves, slithering up on elbows and knees, rolling past Anderson over the last step and reaching back to pull her friend the rest of the way. "Cassandra, what the hell."

Her helmet sits lonely at the bottom of the stairs. _Too bad._ Panic and calm go to war in her beleaguered head, and she leaves them duking it out to focus on their current situation. Something has quite clearly gone wrong, if they're staring an ambush in the teeth. "We'll get them on the stairs."

"Switch off for reloading. Watch the lobby." Sky adapts to the new circumstance immediately, checking the spare magazines Velcro-ed to her protective vest. "I wish we had some grenades."

Anderson smirks at the superbly appealing idea, reviewing the resources at their disposal. Not great, but she's becoming proficient in these situations. Sky settles herself prone at the head of the stairs, offering nothing but her helmet encased head as a target. They're good helmets, Anderson reminds herself, built to withstand 99.9% of all non-penetrating shells. It might be nice to have hers up here, but it's not here, and wishing won't change that, so she flattens her back against the wall, facing the opposite direction to watch the wide empty lobby and wait. Cover would be nice, she muses idly in the calm quiet, but so would not being ambushed in the first place. She can hear the quiet commands now, carried by some quirk of acoustics to the mouth of the dark stairwell. Front rank: ready, steady, advance.

They come with a tentative first round, testing ranges and angles, slugs digging into the door frame and shooting well wide of the prone Judge. Judge Sky takes full advantage of their hesitation in mounting the stairs, testing defenses with a series of rapid shots. "Fucking body armor," She takes quick aim at the small gaps in their defenses, wounding and disabling with great efficiency, but only slowing the tentative progress their attackers are beginning to make on the stairs. "Hot shot." The display panel in the side blinks in affirmation, and she fires grimly at the approaching swarm of paramilitaries, lighting the dark stair with blinding red-white light before the world erupts in flames and she's staring into a portal to hell. Something whistles out, thrown or launched over her head, small canister spewing noxious green gas every which way.

"Respirators," Anderson jams hers up her nostrils and into her mouth, inhaling to test the filters and leaning around to add her suppressing fire to the panicked, burning men below. The gas burns her unprotected eyes, but she's more worried about the imperfect visibility. On a good day, the obscured view would be a huge asset in their favor, but today's definitely not a good day.

Sky jams hers on, "Save it," She advises shortly, taking aim at the later rows of troops, dousing their burning comrades with fire retardant foam, but still advancing in the face of it all.

There's no arguing with the wisdom of that. Anderson can't place an exact number of people they face, but it's a lot. It could all too easily come down to the last shots. The rapid sounds of gunfire overwrite any other sounds of advancement, but she feels something move through the lobby and she fires grimly in the direction, crouching low to reduce the chance of being hit by blind return fire. Automatically, she rests her arms on a raised knee, steadying her aim and taking another shot at a flicker of thought, rewarded with a heavy grunt, but she still can't see whatever is out there, billowing gas creating the illusion of movement, varying densities creating the appearance of shapes hunched around the open space, but probably not there.

She fires blindly into the fog a few more times, and this time the fire is returned, drawing sparks where the bullets contact the floor and pitting the walls around her. An indecipherable order barks out, unseen, and Anderson looses a series of rapid fire shots in the direction, rewarded by grunts and shouts, but the return fire stops temporarily. A dark canister sails out of the foggy depths, and she can't identify what it is, but grits her teeth as the explosion of sound and magnesium white light burning through her slitted eyelids, leaving nonsensical after images dancing across her vision. Beside her, Sky screams, but keeps shooting. Her pain, a terrible deep burning sensation spreading from hip to knee, darkens the edges of Anderson's vision, one more peril of a psychic standing beside someone touching an exploding flash-bang. Nausea roils through her, but the second explosion has flung the worst of the gas to the ceiling, and she can make out the deep semi-circle of muzzles pointed at her. She keeps firing. There is no other choice._ Judges do not surrender_. It's a shame she doesn't have more time, but the odds were never good. A shot burns through her arm and something gives her neck a mighty sting. She continues firing, 'Giver clicking through the magazine, then clicking on empty as Sky shudders and goes still.

Far away and right up close, she watches the semi circle advance as the first troops emerge from the stairs, armor still smoking in some places. They kick the limp body of Judge Sky away, and Anderson thinks she cries out for her friend, but she's not sure.

Then darkness.  
Then nothing at all.

* * *

Slowly and painfully Anderson finds her way down dark and winding corridors to a blurred consciousness. Her closed eyes are gritty and her mouth has a vile taste in it, but somehow she's still alive. She's alive... and Corey Sky is not. The loss hurts more terribly than any discomforted part of her body. There are not enough good Judges, and precious few who she could call dear to her. She's going to get out of here, and she's going to bring justice to the judge's killers. All of them. Extraneous sensations make themselves felt over her rage and guild and loss, glaring white light searing through her eyelids, a hard cold flat surface pressing against her bare back, a faint breeze stirring against the back of her exposed thighs and arms. It's cold and as she shivers she becomes frighteningly aware of constraints digging into her arms, chest, and legs.

"Sir, she's coming around."

The rough, unfamiliar voice stills her immediately. She feels outward, sensing the trio of minds, organized and disciplined, one shining with excitement brighter than the others. Honing in on that last one, she's swept up in the maelstrom of thoughts, attention flickering between the limp figure covered loosely in a blue hospital gown strapped to the gurney, processing the dozens of readouts blinking languidly on screens around the wall, hypothesizing and analyzing, thought short-cutting between topics she doesn't understand and can't follow.

A fiery cold pain arcs across Anderson's awareness, hurling her back into her body, muscles twitching uncontrollably. The searing light dims, and warily she opens her eyes to the sight of a pointed, aristocratic face peering down at her inquisitively. The smell of money hangs thick around him, a tangible cloud of cologne and healthy living. He smiles, revealing flawless dentistry, and speaks. "It is an honor to play host to a Judge as illustrious as yourself, Miss Cassandra Anderson. I have been waiting for this meeting, you know."

Anderson glares at this fancy stranger's familiarity. Instinct tells her that here's someone involved with the slaughter of her friend, someone close enough to exact retribution now. All she needs to rain hell on him is her freedom and maybe a pair of pants. Her awareness stretches out, trying to glean more data from her surroundings, particularly this gentleman, but before she's entirely out of her body the burning, convulsing sensation throws her back into her own head.

The stranger's face moves back slightly, reaching to something, someone, out of her field of vision, bringing a slender white rod into view. "How interesting," his smile stretches until she's sure his face will split. "You know, there were rumors that the psionic Judge was capable of sneaking into a man's head and forcing him to act according to her will. It's a pleasure to discover that some stories are only just fancy." His smile disappears like a switch flicked off. "Though I suppose not for you, hm?" He spins the small prod around long fingers. "I warn you: we can see when you're digging around in our heads, and will react with force. This does not have to be unpleasant for you, so long as you stay in your own head."

Keeping a practical awareness on the proximity of the device the stranger is fiddling with, Anderson slips the reign on her anger. "You're fucked, you creep. Do you know the penalty for abducting a Judge?" The vulgar outburst makes her feel a little better, a little less afraid. Focusing on the abduction that has happened is easier than thinking about the torture which might happen soon. She struggles against the thick restraints, "Better get your kicks in while you can, you fuckwit."

The smile flickers back to life, amused and slightly condescending, returning the slender weapon to the unseen guardian behind her. "A long slow terrible death, if I recall correctly. If they realize you're gone. If they find us." He ruffles her hair fondly, "Tragically for us both, my kicks will have to wait for a later time. I quite look forward to it. Attend to her, Levine, I must go now." He beckons the man in a long white coat over, clamping his underling firmly on the shoulder before disappearing in a swish of long coat. "I expect details as they come in. Do not disappoint. Ta!"

A guard places two heavy hands on Anderson, immobilizing her, as the new man, Levine, bustles around the perimeter of the room, returning to her side. Deftly he inserts a needle into the crook of her elbow, settling the bladder of clear fluid onto the edge of the platform she's held against. The needle stings, and for a moment Anderson is aware of something thick and viscous sliding into her veins. By that time though, the guard's grip has shifted and another drip, and then another is stuck into her circulatory system, the scant modesty of the open backed gown pushed away to allow electrodes to be stuck to exposed skin, cold and gummy against her chest and ribs and temples until she's surrounded by tangles of complicated medical paraphernalia, all frustratingly out of reach.

The IV technician waves his silent assistant back to an unseen corner, and takes a seat on a stool squarely in Anderson's field of vision. "I realize you are frightened, Cassandra. I do not intend to hurt you." The feeling in her veins shifts slightly, she tries to make a hostile retort but her voice catches. "This isn't ideal, but I think we can work together to greatness. Let me start again, properly this time: I am Doctor Levine and I am trying to help those poor souls known as mutants."

Anderson blinks sleepily at him, this is not what she had come to expect during her year long stint walking the streets of Mega-City One. He doesn't seem crazy, which is at odds with the act of killing one Judge and kidnapping another. "You think your concern excuses this? You bastard, you're gonna fry and I hope I'm there to see it..." Her tongue is thick and clumsy, words coming slowly and then not at all. Her sluggish responses don't trigger much more than mild bemusement. Drugs then, but odd ones to be administered intravenously. The barbaric practice had gone out of practice a long time ago; why jab someone with a needle when gas and absorption are so much more efficient?

"I have been following your career with great interest," Doctor Levine leans forward, smiling up at her. "And not just the busts you've been carrying out on my laboratories, either. You are unique, Cassandra, a mutant with great power who has integrated comfortably into our society. Radiation poisoning is a complex and terrible thing, and there is no way to escape it in this city, not with population trends as they are. In the coming years there will be more and more people forced passed the barricades delineating the safe zone, more women giving birth to children who will never know anything but the slow burn of gamma and theta radiation. Today one in twenty citizens born in Mega-City One is a mutant. In twenty years, maybe fifty at best, it will be one in four. We do not know enough about the disease, we do not understand why it kills some, gives some tentacles or additional limbs, or why it made you psychic. The future depends on our understanding, unraveling this mystery so we can fight it, make people more like you and less like your parents, less like your neighbors."

_Tell him you think he's full of shit, you won't help, and he's going to get his ass kicked to high holy hell when the other Judges find he's kidnapped you and killed Judge Sky._ That's too much of a mouthful for her right now, but she stubbornly shakes her head, the weight of her skull bending her neck uncomfortably. "Bullshit." For all her effort it comes out a soft, drunken mumble, but the doctor hears it and pats her arm comfortingly.

"It's a bit more complicated than that, to be sure," The doctor agrees reasonably. "But at the end of the day, we cannot continue with the current treatments for radiation sickness and mutation. Do you know the statistical improvements a full Clavax treatment has on the likelihood of a child in the Radiation Zone never developing mutations?"

Anderson gives him a slightly disbelieving look, shaking her heavy head slowly, trying to break through the haze. The air currents roar in her ears, and she sags limply against her restraints.

"It's a delta of less than ten percent. For 90% of the children who receive the full treatment, and precious few do, there will be no change in their odds for a normal life. All that sacrifice, all that hope, and they may as well just be taking the placebos you seem so intent on destroying. You save no one by arresting my workers and confiscating my machines; you only stymie funding that could be used to make something better." He smiles, patting her arm again as the former Judge's bright eyes glaze over as the sedative takes effect. "But that's all rather irrelevant to you now, isn't it?" Briskly he stands, kicking the stool back into its corner and pulling an elaborate sampling kit from a lower shelf. There is so much work to be done, vials of blood and saliva and urine, cell and DNA samples to collect and analyze and send off to his masters before he can engage in the work that truly matters.


	4. Chapter 4

_A/N: Two reviews? You make me sad, gentle readers. Your punishment is having to read a sad author's note bemoaning the lack of reviews, instead of a super happy one thanking everyone. That said, two you two who do review: You are wonderful, incredible, and very, very helpful with your observations. I IMPLORE you all to drop me a line about this chapter in particular. I'm terrified that I screwed up Dredd's characterization. Help me_

It takes Dredd by mild surprise when he arrives in the garage and Judge Anderson isn't waiting for him by his Lawmaster. She had reminded him of their next shared patrol only a few short hours ago before slinking off to rest. It takes him a minute to access the assignments on his LawMaster's display, a minute more to find that she had gone out earlier for a walk around the Sector 4 beat. _Perfectly within her rights, and good initiative on her behalf too._ He goes out into the warm evening alone and doesn't think on it again.

Several days later and the feeling that something is missing niggles the back of his mind, observable only through its absence. When he identifies the missing element as Anderson's needlesome presence, he resolutely refuses to think on the strangeness of missing someone as green and complicated as the blonde Judge. Its natural for certain Judges to be drawn together in their work; in spite of the lax attitude towards formal squads, there's an observable 68% consistency when looking at the logs of group responses. The same people work together and work best with the Judges they work most frequently with. He's just falling into that pattern, nothing more or less. He would have expected her to tell him if she was unhappy with their collaboration, and makes his way to the nearest desk Judge to gain more information before coming to conclusions.

The young man in the neat blue uniform of a Control Judge doesn't look up from the complicated manipulations of the hologram in front of him, even when he feels Judge Dredd looming over him. You have to be professional, particularly when dealing with a Street Judge. They officially are the same rank, and however tough and big Judge Joe Dredd might be, he's still just another Judge. "Hello, Dredd, what can I assist you with?" He inquires neutrally, not looking away from his work.

Dredd resists the urge to slap his hand through the dancing shapes of light and break the neat looking cube Judge's nose. Striking a Judge is against the law, even for a Judge. "Status of Judge Cassandra Anderson."

The Control Judge pauses, issuing an instruction into his headset for someone to attend to a mob of drunk and disorderlies before investigating the request. "Cassandra Anderson tendered her resignation two days ago, citing severe emotional trauma following the death of her fellow Judge Corey Sky while on patrol. Her resignation was signed off last night upon the return of her uniform and primary weapon. Gone civvie, I guess." He sighs, dismissing the readout with a flick of his fingers. "That's a goddamn shame, Dredd. I'll miss her; she was top notch."

Something in the desk Judge's tone makes Dredd reconsider his initial decision not to abuse the younger man. He never stops to think about what other Judges get up to when they're not walking the streets, least of all Cassandra Anderson. In his mind she exists solely as a bright eyed stubborn prosecutor of the criminal and evil. Logically there must be times when she's off duty laughing with and teasing other Judges. It's a stupid thought to have and he banishes it almost immediately. Without responding, he turns his back on the Judge, drowning any treasonous whispers of thoughts under the weight of his duty. Somewhere in his city there are laws being broken, and that's his priority. Not the business of Citizen Cassandra Anderson.

* * *

He does his job and doesn't think too much, day after day, week after week. The life of a Judge is short and uncertain, and it takes his full attention, all his cunning and violence, to keep his life stretching a little longer every day, traversing the endless loop of homicide, drug use and manufacturing, disturbing the peace, smuggling, and general chaos.

"Control to Dredd, we have a situation in Wharton complex requiring immediate attention. We repeat: situation in Wharton requiring immediate attention." The voice crackles to life in his helmet.

Dredd stares down the three pummeled creeps who had been burning garbage illegally, weak and pathetic and desperate. "Your crimes are pollution, resisting arrest, and loitering. The verdict is guilty; the sentence is three weeks in Iso, six weeks of planet side labor." He touches his communicator, "Be there shortly."

Control's voice crackles with impatience. "Get a move on, Judge; everyone we've sent to Wharton has been unable to make a go of it, we're receiving some truly bizarre reports of things in there. We'll send a transport wagon to your location; cuff your creeps and shift ass."

Wharton building is almost peaceful when he stops his Lawmaster in front of the wide double doors propped open to welcome anyone with credits to spend. Only a ragged line of Judges bar the entrance from a crowd of citizens huddled in the light spilling from the entrance. Dredd looks his colleagues over with something that borders on contempt. He knows, better than most, that there are occasionally things that are beyond the ability of a single veteran Judge, but this is a full squad. Even if, for some bizarre reason, they can't handle the situation, its their job to be inside putting up a fight. Not standing out here like common security goons. With no small amount of irritation, he crosses the empty stretch of concrete and stops in front of the senior Judge anchoring the line. "Report, Judge Carson." Up close he can see the sheen of sweat on the Judge's blocky jaw, smell the sour vomit smell hanging around the law keepers.

To his credit, Judge Carson doesn't quail beneath the empty gaze of Dredd's visor. He salutes mechanically, "Judge Tenor received the report from Control at 20:17 to investigate a double suicide at Wharton block, called in by residents. He was able to determine that the two events were not simultaneous, occurring within an estimated 30 minutes of each other. While documenting the scene, at precisely 20:30, another body jumped, we estimate an origin between floors 11 and 50." He pauses, Adam's apple bobbing as he swallows. "The pattern of one every 30 minutes has continued without interruption since observation commenced. All attempts to further investigate the source of the disturbance were halted at the entrance to level 3 with Judges reporting severe nausea and hallucinations."

_Useless._ Dredd scowls, jerking his chin in the direction of the huddling civilians. "What do they say?"

Judge Carson shrugs, "The person who called it in hasn't stepped forward yet, but the general consensus is that the first incident was definitely two bodies simultaneously, and they don't give a shit for the evidence."

Calling a judge a liar in the face of evidence either makes them insane or uncommonly truthful. "None of them have anything to say about what's been going on over their heads?"

"Merchants to a man." Judge Carson curls a lip in distaste, "They keep their stalls on the first floor and live right above them. Why should they care about the residents above them until one falls on their head?"

"Did you try the elevators?"

"Broken, sir," Judge Carson frowns at the perceived insult. "Every damn one of them."

"You don't find that suspicious?" He knows he's being a dick. It's something Anderson would disapprove of if she was here. Too fucking bad for her and Judge Carson both.

"No sir. Merchants, like I said." Judge Carson's frown is replaced by a neutral expression achieved only through deliberate effort not to react.

Dredd grunts, "Call a meat wagon and keep an eye on your merchants, then." Commandments delivered, he steps over the barrier and stalks into the silent interior. He's seized by an instant of agoraphobia, walking through the mammoth empty space. The remnants of chaos lie scattered about freely, merchandise and spilled nutrients left where they fell. A meaty wet thump echoes through the silence, startling an unwilling wince from the stoic Judge, and a quick glance at his timepiece confirms the time to be precisely 1:30. He can learn nothing from the abandoned possessions around the perimeter, though he had expected nothing else.

There are still the bodies, distorted and motionless, for him to examine before beginning his ascent. Glancing over the corpses, he lets out a soft whistle between his teeth, flopping a limp arm out of the way to get a better look at the carnage. The bodies are marked, burned, cut, gouged, bitten, and stabbed with implements he can't begin to guess at even after his years of experience on the street. If there is a commonality between the victims beyond an unfortunate choice of dwelling, he cannot find it. No repetition of ritual, neither consistent nor brutal enough for torture, and certainly not any sort of run of the mill homicide, much less suicide. He glances around one last time, confirming that he has gleaned all available information from his surroundings. "Level one clear. Beginning ascension." He growls into his link to the Judges outside, checking his gear one last time; Lawgiver, smoke and gas canisters, riot foam, first aid pack, boot knife all in their places. It grates on him that there's no easy way to isolate his search; 49 levels of unpleasant possibilities await him alone. He curses Anderson's poorly timed resignation again, then puts her from his mind. Nothing matters but his duty in the form of the unpleasant task before him. Grimly he kicks the door to the stairwell open, grimacing at the nauseating vomit smell permeating the stairwell. Cursing the weak stomachs of his fellow Judges and the poor fortune that destroyed the elevators in the complex and everything else that comes to mind, he begins to climb.

A headache builds as he trudges up, an ugly burrowing menace that starts gnawing deep in his skull and spreads, pulsing in his eyeballs. Fury rises, cold and certain, at this physical weakness. Justice shouldn't be so vulnerable to a little discomfort. The rage helps keep the pain at bay, allows him to ignore it as he reaches the third floor. The marked door opens with a creak and he follows his Lawgiver into the small landing. It's quiet, uniform banks of locked doors stretching in all directions. Grimly he crosses to the closest one, bringing his fist down heavily on the barrier. "Open in the name of the Law!" A chain rattles, and the door cracks open, a wide brown eye appearing in line with his navel staring up cautiously; a child. "Good morning, Small Child. Are your parents home?" The small slice of head he can see shakes its head negative, and frustration spikes yellow and green across his synapses; he doesn't have time for this. Impatiently he makes his curt farewell and continues his inspection of the floor.

Three quarters of his way around the circuit, he nearly steps on a civilian huddled against a wall, eyes hidden in the crook of her elbow as she scrapes broken fingernails against the unyielding wall_. Threat assessment: unknown._ He keeps his 'Giver at the ready, out, but pointed away from the shuddering civilian. "What's happened?" He snaps out, putting the full force of his authority behind the question.

Slowly, the woman's elbow drops until one wild bulging eye is staring around the curve of flesh. Her mouth moves, too obscured by her shoulder and rats of black and pink hair to be read clearly, and no words come out.

"What is happening? Where is this coming from?" Dredd snarls, red washing over his vision for one dizzying moment before retreating as suddenly as it arrived. The woman clamps her visible eye shut, slapping her palm over her face, fingernails cutting into her cheeks and forehead as she stops scratching the wall to fist her battered fingers in her hair, forefinger sticking straight up, twirling the air above her head. Up. Go up. As if he has any other fucking option. "You wouldn't elaborate on that, would you?" The woman gives no response, and Dredd quite nearly rolls his eyes in exasperation. Not that he does, or that anyone could see if he did. But the will is there.

Unwilling to take suggestions from a civilian of dubious sanity seriously, he continues searching the third floor, knocking on doors. Silence is the only answer, though once he thinks he hears choked sobbing behind one. But no one answers his summons, and even he can't break every damn door down. He climbs more stairs. He knocks on more doors. Nothing. Climb, knock, repeat. Climb, knock, repeat. Past the fourth floor, the fifth, the tenth. The pain in his head intensifies, darkening the edges of his vision. The generic floral wallpaper becomes slashed, tasteful pattern lost under scrawls of gibberish of what might, in the best case scenario, be paint.

On the fifteenth floor there are suddenly people, or what used to be people. They sit catatonic, clawing or biting themselves and occasionally each other. Some of them scream soundlessly, other mumble incoherently. They pay no attention to Dredd, which is just as well because when he opens his mouth to address them, his tongue distends grotesquely, unrolling on the carpet before him down the hall out of sight. He tastes the carpet, and wishes he could not. For a moment, Dredd is thoroughly flummoxed with what to do with the misbehaving organ. It writhes and twitches as he tries to study it, glistening with saliva under the flickering white lights. It won't fit back into his mouth, he's quite certain, so he closes his lips around it as best he can, and advances, let it drag heavily behind him. It doesn't seem to impede his progress significantly, a surprising and nearly pleasant change of pace, all things considered.

He climbs on, crawling up stairs that buck and twist beneath his boots but cannot be rid of the persisting explorer. He can survive this, he will find the source and he will eliminate it. The nineteenth floor gives him trouble as each footfall sends ripples of carpet out in all directions, fouling his footing sending him crashing to the ground once more. He struggles up, falling when his legs won't take his weight. Reflexively, he looks down to find he's dissolving from the knees down, polished boots running in ribbons back towards the stairs. The kernel of rage in his chest burns brightly, forcing him onwards even as he drags himself on his elbows, searching for the source of madness. Kaleidoscopic colors whirl in his vision, and his lower limbs return in red hot spikes through his mind. It takes him time to sort of his knees and ankles, reorient them in the proper directions and remaster the art of putting one foot in front of the other.

Then he walks on. Up another flight of unruly stairs. Through another door that creaks in wide splotches of purple, red, and silver. The last floor has nothing on this one. He knows better than to trust his sight here, when color and shape fade in from kaleidoscopic chaos, otherworldly hues battering abused synapses. He will not be stopped, not by discomfort or hallucinations or anything else. His grip on the Lawgiver is the only reality he needs. As long as its pointed in the proper direction he'll walk or crawl until he finds the source of this insane hell. At least he can navigate by the intensity and weirdness wreaking havoc on his brain; logic dictates that the strength would increase as he gets closer. It's not much, but it's sufficient motivation for a Judge. His limbs wriggle bonelessly and it takes a surprising amount of effort not to look down and receive visual confirmation that another gruesome and terrifying image is waiting to be observed.

He crashes into a barrier, steadying himself and reaching into his memory for the introduction the first volume of _Street Law and YOU_ to stop his focus from falling prey to such useless inquiries of 'what is this?' or 'what does it feel like?' He won't like the answer, and it won't be a correct identification anyway. The words, learned by rote as a boy and clung to as a founding pillar of his existence, hold his focus as his hands and arms explore the surface, locating a handhold. The irregularity pulls his traitorous thoughts back to the present, and he sags under the weight of so many alien sensations vying to be recognized, given the attention they need to bring pain and madness. He will have none of it, focusing on the agonizing grip and wrenching with a guttural shout, black waves crashing around him as fire flares up his arm and the barricade vanishes. Cautiously he takes blind steps forward, meets no resistence, and takes another. The veils fall away as he progresses, and Dredd finds himself facing a moment of uncertainty; this reality, if reality it is, does not match his hypothesis of the malaise gripping the building. He should go back and continue his exploration, but there's no sense leaving this section half explored. The hallucinations and random spikes of discomfort fade, though the synaesthesia persists, giving the small sounds of his footfalls and breathing peculiar imagery.

Risking a quick glance behind him, Joe Dredd sees nothing but an empty stretch of hallway, long straight lines broken only by a crumpled electro-sheet, doubtless the source of burning from when he pushed pass and the scorch marks on the palm of his glove. The barrier is non-standard in this building model; maybe he's not so far off after all. He's not sure if it's a comforting thought, but such speculation is twice irrelevant. He walks on with renewed caution.

It's almost a relief when gunshots crack, flashing yellow streaks across his vision and smelling something like the number 45. The psychological effects are a paltry distraction, he returns suppressing fire, advancing by inches until he finds the shallow cover of a doorway. The sounds and colors of their shouts ripple through the air and out of sight doors bang open with the sound of reinforcements. He takes advantage of his opponents' momentary distraction to end the encounter with a stun grenade, waiting a moment before edging around the corner and returning fire on the few conscious enough to shoot at him. He secures the survivors and doubles back to the door frame he had hunkered in moments before. The lock offers paltry resistance to a well aimed kick, and he steps in the dim room, covering his corners and kicking the door shut behind him.

It smells like a hospital, antiseptic and dead, though through the low light filter in his helmet he can see it's only a single low gurney shoved into a corner, shrouded by a protective web of tubes and wires, leaving the rest of the space to be dominated by large medical displays and data tablets and papers and books and lab equipment. Pain lances through him again, every fiber contracting and fighting its neighbors, spurring him to violent movement toward the body on the gurney.

Cassandra Anderson.

His heart stops, then restarts itself with above average vigor, thudding uncomfortably as he stares down at the unconscious ex-Judge, draped loosely with a medical gown held in place by thick belts across her body, entangled in medical paraphernalia well beyond his pay grade. "Dredd to Control, source of disturbance identified. Taking action now." Yes, but _what_ action? He had entered the building with the intent of termination, but that seems like a less viable option with Civilian Anderson at the center of this shit storm. Cautiously, he studies the labels plastered the the drips, picking out vaguely familiar names. Hallucinogens, uppers, saline and sedatives. Everything else is a mystery, but the knowledge is a start.

Not trusting the soulless blinking displaces displays, he spares a second to check her vitals: pulse, sluggish, and respiratory function, faint. The contact sends whorls of pain and terror directly into his mind, threatening to suck him into the vortex that has ensnared the mutant before him. His ears roar with the soundless cries of a hundred minds trapped with her, but he will not join them. Not today not ever, and he wrenches away from the contact.  
Breathing heavily, Dredd hesitates, then holsters his Lawgiver and sets to the tedious process of stripping Anderson of the needles and sensors anchoring her to the displays staring down sightlessly. She's not a Judge, she might not even count as a civilian in some eyes, but being held captive and tortured isn't illegal, even for disturbingly powerful psychics. He starts with the most obvious ones, ripping away adhesive coverings and extracting the needles piercing the crook of each arm and anchored to the backs of her hands. An ugly wound on her arm, half healed, seizes his attention for a moment; grazed by a projectile of some kind, probably a bullet, fairly recently. Obviously not healed by the facilities in the Hall of Justice, has she been in a firefight since her resignation? A useless line of inquiry; he drops it. Next to go are the transmitters gummed to her skin which he peels off slowly and discards beside the dripping needles. One by one the displays flat line as the censors cease transmission, but a few persist, spiking hypnotically in time with Anderson's biological rhythms. Tubes carrying bright purple fluids disappear under the flimsy medical wrap, and he steels himself for the next part.

This is duty, proceeding with dry mouth and emotional discord towards a necessary objective. The width and depth of his professional experience have not prepared him for the act of undressing a former colleague, and some unruly part of his mind, still rattled from hallucination adds the unwanted modifiers _attractive_ and _female_. _**SHUT UP**_._ You can do this._ It is ridiculous to act like the mere removal of a garment is the most difficult thing he's done as a Judge. He is in control. Him, Judge Joe Dredd. Not some errant thoughts, not some artificially induced hallucinations. He's better than this. He focuses on the details, the loose knots that unravel at a touch, the way the fabric resists being tugged under the heavy restraints, the whisper it makes against the floor. His intention is to focus only on the tubes feeding into her skin and the metallic patches signalling to the feeds, but that is all suddenly much more difficult. Burns dapple her from neck to hip, ranging from the the recent bright pink to scabbed and healing brown. He's seen worse, but it's never pleasant, and to have it inflicted on a Judge, one he had found tolerable, brings the ice cold rage, the need to rain great and terrible justice down on the perpetrators to the forefront of his mind. This first, though. With steady hands he extracts the needles and removes the electrodes.

One by one the displays go blank until only the two largest remain, brilliant hues spiking and waving, reactions to some input that isn't from any obvious external censor. It takes him a minute to locate the thin crown encircling her skull, nestled in a cloud of yellow hair. Removing a glove, he fiddles the complex latch holding the quadrants together with maximum delicacy and with agonizing slowness extracts the silver fibers from her skull. He waits until the last one clatters in a distant corner before letting his revulsion show. "What the fucking hell were they doing to you?" He pauses once more, ascertaining that his words have not attracted any further attention before undoing the buckles holding the fragile looking civilian in place.

Her _head is foggy_,** deep and dark** and another mind intrudes _**too close**_. Weakly she washes _in and around impenetrable thoughts sliding_ **helpless**. Pain_ registers red blooming under_ her_ skin pinches_ and **pricks** which might _heal someday_ but_ right now are exposed and open_ to_ the closed over __**sky**_. The _strange thoughts __**cold**__ and angry_ and **CONTROL **_move in diagnostic patterns_ around her but utterly meaningless. The _meat in her head stirs_ and she lets the strange sensations carry her away, _floating as suffocating weight is lifted from her chest_ and shoulders _jerky puppet limbs moving imperfectly struggling_ to remember natural feelings. A stray gesture brings c_onfused fingertips_ in contact with_ caustic five o'clock stubble_, the quiet cold clarity filtering through skin touching skin. She can't retreat from the wash of thoughts pushing in, forcing familiar order from a year of constant exposure. Restraint and power trickle through her cracked brain and bringing some semblance of order to the tempest. "Dredd?" The croak echos unpleasantly through her head.

"Anderson," He hates the feeling of her trembling fingers on his face, the unfettered access it grants her. He hates the sudden feeling of vulnerability. "Report."

Her _arm is too heavy_ to keep up, it flops uselessly away from the strength and control and the visor hovering above her_ flickers and ripples, fades away_._ Foreign agents run through her roads and channels, obscuring and confusing._ His _words boom in her head_, too loud to be understood. She falls, _**darkness**_ rushing up to greet her again, and she fights. Fights as she has since time immeasurable. Red flutters through her vision, arrhythmic convulsions sending spasms arcing across her as _hundreds of minds scream in horror, pain, disgust, despair._

The whispery touch disappears from his jaw, the thud of her arm hitting the hard platform seems to echo in the room, and it's obvious even to his untrained eye that she's fading. The the color washes from sallow skin, muscles twitch erratically and her eyes roll back. Trying not to think too hard, he grabs her hand, cold to the touch even through the extra layer of leather. "Stay with me, kid. Don't go wandering off now. What's your status?"

**Warmth**, gentle and solid, finds her_ lost in the quagmire_ of her mind, bright lines of discipline and control rebuilding her from ground up until she fits back into her own skin, more or less. She blinks, eyelids scraping roughly as she looks up into the black visor. "Dredd, I... Did I-"

"Shush," He squeezes her hand. "Lets get out of here."

The order, reinforced with contact, quells the rising tide of panic. Tentatively she returns the pressure, rolling moisture around in her mouth before managing to speak. "Mmm, right-o. Yes sir." With grueling effort, she props herself on her elbows, shaking with exertion as she swings her legs over the side.

Her grip tightens uncomfortably as she drags herself upright, the motion dragging his attention back to the fact that Anderson's only covering is a pair of standard issue black briefs. He counts it a blessing that she's too loopy to notice both her state of undress and the blush he can't quite suppress. This is an event he'll happily go to his grave without sharing. Quickly, he grabs a folded sheet from a compartment beneath the gurney, draping it around her quaking shoulders. Better than nothing.

She latches onto his arm as he knots the sheet around her loosely, giving him a hazy smile. "Thanks."

"Don't mention it."_ Please, never_. "Can you walk?" He's not looking forward to carrying her down twenty flights of stairs past the waiting Judges outside. It would be awkward, questions he doesn't want to answer will be asked.

"Uhm," Anderson digs her fingers into the strong arm of support, clumsily easing herself of the platform until her feet touch cold ground. "Yes?" She's guessing, tottering awkwardly on jelly legs which have all but forgotten how to perform their function. Dredd holds perfectly still as she uses him as a crutch, muscles flexing, adjusting, remembering. "Yes."

The strength of her grip takes him by surprise and he holds perfectly still until she's achieved her own sort of precarious balance. One more quick check around the room and he's more than ready to be off, touching his 'Giver for reassurance before pushing past the broken door into the abandoned hall. Quiet, save for the quiet groans of the guards he had overcome on his way here. "Dredd to Control, prisoners for transport on level 20." He glances at the unconscious men, an idea forming. He acts without analyzing too much, stripping the green camo patterned jacket off one, and relieving the smallest dead man of his boots, dropping the footwear before Anderson and tossing the jacket around her shoulders. She can't ride through the streets in a damned sheet, after all. Boots and a jacket are necessities, though pants would be an asset, too. Logic slaps the idea down with brutal efficiency. Too much effort. Evacuation is priority.

Anderson slips into the too big still warm boots with a grimace of distaste, steadying herself against the wall for balance. She wiggles her toes in the unfamiliar space and makes a small sound of disgust before worming her arms into bulky sleeves, fumbling with the zipper until it's as high as it can go. She feels better, protected, covered, warm, and tries to adjust the sheet's arrangement so it won't snarl her awkward shuffling steps or fall down if she lets go of it. Dredd leads and she follows, seeing only the wide expanse of his back and feeling only the shape of this thoughts. Peripherally, she glimpses of things strange and terrifying and a dark haze clouds her, but he seems hyper-aware of it, speaking or reaching for her when she falters, stopping when she can't take another step for shaking. Weakly, she bats him away when he moves to her side. She can do this. She is a Judge. She will not be seen being carried anywhere. By anyone.

Dredd looks at the tiny civilian with mild disbelief. Visibly teetering on the edge of collapse and she has the gall to try and push him away. Another bout with the craziness plaguing her, or some innate stubbornness returning? It's irrelevant in this moment, and he adjusts his grip on his weapon to hook his free hand around bony shoulders, taking some of her feather weight upon himself. Reflexively, she drapes an arm over his neck, working with him to negotiate the last dozen floor. He's running out of time to come up with a next step in the process, how to explain her presence to the waiting Judges. It goes against everything to bring a free citizen back to the Hall of Justice, even to benefit from the superb medical care available there. Conversely, having gone through the trouble of rescuing her, more or less, it doesn't sit well with him to drop her on the stoop and be on his way. A troubling decision, and one he must make soon.

He's proven wrong when, as they take their final steps to the vile smelling landing of the ground floor, Anderson freezes, latching onto the bannister and refusing to move. Her eyes are wide, and her panic sends spikes of electric blue through his mind, pulse accelerating unnaturally to match her agitation.

"Judges," She whispers, trying to claw her way back up the stairs.

She's never been a match for him physically and certainly isn't now. He's damned if he's going to climb another goddamn flight of stairs today and he tightens his grip, clinging to the quiet calm that is entirely certainly his, whatever psychic mind things she might be pushing into his brain. "Yeah, back up."

Sensing the futility of her struggle, Anderson gives up, going limp and leaving Dredd awkwardly bearing her full weight on one arm. "It was a set up," She whispers hoarsely and shakes her head.

With an internal grumble, he returns his Lawgiver to its holster on his thigh. If they get shot now, he promises himself he'll hunt Cassandra Anderson down in whatever part of Heaven or Hell she takes residence in and kill her again. "They're not going to haul off and shoot you in front of me." He can see her violet disbelief struggling against a soft white comfort, but he blinks and its gone, vision showing only his former partner struggling back to her feet.

His certainty restores some of her faith, and she focuses on finding her feet again, balance a little harder to find than normal in a stranger's huge boots. "'M not going back to HQ."

"No worries there," An idea appears, as crazy as anything else going on in Wharton. It's a dearly needed short term solution, she only has to stay for a few days. Just until she's able to go back to her civilian home, whatever that is. Wordlessly, he half carries her out the door into the blindly bright afternoon. "It's clear," he gestures to the waiting Judges, ignoring their sounds of inquiry. They don't press the issue, letting him walk back to his Lawmaster, helping Anderson negotiate the seat before clambering on himself and setting off.


	5. Chapter 5

_A/N: I don't even want to think about the sentence for not updating for THREE weeks, especially not after all the superb reviews I received. The next chapter will not take three weeks! If this installment is a little slow it's because the pace is going to go nuts and not slow down until the end. Are you excited? I am._

Against all odds, he manages to bring them back to their grim monolithic destination without anything going wrong. He leaves his Lawmaster in its docking station, easing Anderson off the back of the bike and half carries her through the checkpoint, into the elevator, down the hall, brainlessly slapping the code into the panel on his door and dragging them both through it, trailing the sheet behind him until it succumbs to gravity. Anderson follows its trajectory, her legs long since useless and Dredd's arms rapidly approaching inevitable fatigue. He twists her over his hip as she falls, landing her, more or less gently, in a deep battered armchair. She huddles down in the confiscated coat, peering over the collar with bleary eyes. Dredd frowns down at her pensively and then takes action. From a panel in the wall that serves him as a canteen he taps in a request and removes two hydration packets, draining one in a long satisfying swallow and carrying the second one to Anderson. "Here."

It takes her a moment to work clumsy fingers around the pull tab, but it's sweet victory when she succeeds, drinking greedily from the opening. She pulls a face at the taste, a little too salty and a little too sweet. It helps ease some pain in her head and gut, banishing some of the clouds fogging her mind. Squeezing the last drops from the bottom of the bottle, she looks up at her rescuer. "Where am I?" She glances around the small space with her first trace of curiosity, taking in the mismatched worn furnishings, tiny galley squeezed in beside a video feed on a desk and some hard worn workout equipment. "I thought you might take me back the headquarters."

Dredd shakes his head, retrieving the empty bottle and tossing them into a disposal unit. "A safe house. The Hall of Justice is no place for a civilian."

"What."

It's not phrased as a question, and he grapples with the response. Is she an amnesiac on top of everything else? "You know the rules," he growls, wondering where this defensive reaction comes from. "Judges only."

It doesn't make any more sense the second time he says it. Is this still a dream? Did she dream this rescue? Somehow she's out of the deep comfy chair, grabbing Dredd by his armored vest, dragging him down to her level, shoving her nose against his visor, "I. AM. A. JUDGE." That single truth is all she has. All she is. One thing that can never, ever be taken from her.

He moves defensively as she springs at him but fails the evasion, catching her weight against his forearms as she snarls, cool breath puffing against the exposed part of his face. Uncertainty and rage crackles in the air around her, desperation radiating off her and drying his mouth, tangling with his own confusion and what might, inexplicably , be hope. Four wild brown eyes stare up at him. He squints, very nearly crossing his eyes, and Anderson's face reassembles itself, much closer than anyone's face has ever been before. "You resigned."

"Bullshit," She glares up at him, red hot fury pumping in her veins more invigorating than any adrenaline injection.

"Your resignation was approved May 14. Three days after your patrol with Judge Sky."

Mental anguish makes itself felt, hissing out between her teeth at the memory. "Corey..." Anderson sags as anger is drowned by a tide of grief. "She died. I remember..." Grief, rage, pain, darkness. Nothing. "I woke up in that room. Never got back. You know that I wouldn't. Give up. Not me. Not for anything. Someone's trying to stop me. Hurt me." She perks up a bit, eyes glinting with violence. "I'm going to find them."

His first instinct is to trust her in this as he has all other things. It's nearly impossible for him to take seriously the idea that she might be lying now. But if she's telling the truth, if she didn't resign, then someone else committed grievous fraud in the heart of Justice itself and got away. It's painful to consider that there might be more corruption in the institution he holds fast to, the ideals he strives toward in its name. Additionally he has to weigh in the balance that Cassandra Anderson, regardless of her professional status, is still not well. Her psychic abilities are still erratic and beyond her control, volatile emotions hanging tangibly in the air of his apartment. The brightness is fading from her face, replaced by the grey and green of imminent sickness and he moves decisively once more, dragging her through the cell shaped bedroom and dropping her before the toilet. She wretches, a low guttural sound, and he holds her hair out of the way as the water and electrolytes make a violent reappearance.

"Yuck," Anderson spits, grimaces at the bilious taste, spits again, and accepts a glass over water handed down by Dredd. She shakes violently, dampening the sleeve of her coat but gets enough water to rinse her mouth out, spitting it into the toilet after the puke, and leaning heavily on the lever to flush the mess away. She's too tired to move from the toilet, and given the gastrointestinal uncertainty that lingers, that might not be such a bad thing.

The communicator in his glove buzzes, and he directs his scowl to it. "Yes?"

"Dredd, the hell are you thinking? Report back to Wharton."

"Hershey," He knows that voice and clipped tones from years of prolonged exposure. "I was there. I took care of it. Why are you calling about this?"

"Carson didn't seem to think that riding off into the sunset with a suspect in tow was 'handling it'. He wants you slapped with dereliction of duty." The amusement in her voice fades. "Help me out here, Joe. I've got McGruder in one ear and Carson in the other, and neither of them are going to be helpful until you mosey on over. I'll see you soon."

The radio link is terminated abruptly and his frown remains immobile. He's a good little soldier, he will go, but it rankles to leave Anderson in her current state alone.

"Go," Anderson grumbles hoarsely, sagging back against the shower door. "I don't need a nan..."

The exhaustion rolls off his guest in tangible waves, crushing him under their weight. He will be slowed, galvanizing himself into action, hauling her back up and dragging her into the bed room. Her useless protest has triggered an association, and he lets the idea bloom as he rolls her limply onto the small bed, retrieving a bucket from the bathroom as a pragmatic afterthought. A soft sounds indicates that Anderson has fallen asleep, hopefully she'll find the bucket on her own if the need arises. Grabbing a Calorie Cube from the small pile on the table, he returns to the main room, punching the code for housekeeping into the video screen. The sign flashes twice, Transferring Please Hold, and then a wide smiling face fills the screen.

"Ah, Senor Dredd!" The beetle black eyes twinkle under white eyebrows. "It has been a while, no? What can I do for you today?"

Dredd nods at the patriarch of the housekeeping staff. "Nico, I need a maid for room 224 floor 51. Can you send Maria? And some women's clothing." He tries not to let the old Italian's smirk get under his skin. Better to be thought indecent than let Anderson wander around in nothing but a coat.

"Si, my friend, I send her up quick like. Maria!" He bellows off screen, and flashes a white and gold smile in Dredd's direction. "She be right up, Senor. Have a nice day."

A minute ticks by as Dredd chews the dense food substitute and then someone knocks at the door, "Housekeeping!"  
Dredd taps the door open and stands back to let the young woman enter. "That was fast."

"When Nonno says hurry, you hurry." The young maid flashes a white grin. "I have the clothes you requested, Senor." She extends the neatly folded stack of garments toward him.

"In there," Dredd jerks his head towards the dark bedroom. "Can you stay, help the girl in there if she needs anything?" He doesn't wait for an answer, "Thanks." Without further ado, he marches back out of his tiny apartment, sealing the door behind him. He burns rubber back to Wharton, Lawmaster once again a familiar extension of himself, unhindered by the unfamiliar weight of a passenger.

The street in front of the small complex is cordoned off but he's waved through by a uniformed Judge standing guard, and he eases his bike through the crowds. Hershey's methodical touch is visible everywhere in the carefully controlled chaos sprawling into the street. At a glance he recognize the morning's evacuees standing around one edge, attended to by a carnival of street vendors with an innate sense for customers. Along the adjoining side of the square a white field tent has been set up and in its shady interior he can just make out the white and black uniforms of medics moving through the crowd of civilians performing basic triage and taking statements from those who had been trapped inside. He doesn't have to see the stack of bagged corpses or guarded prisoners to know they're there along the remaining side; Hershey wouldn't allow any crime scene under her authority be anything less than perfectly ordered. Parking his Lawmaster beside the fleet along the front side of the building, he follows the instructions of yet another do-nothing guard back into the building, humming with activity, into a service elevator and up to the twentieth floor.

He finds Judge Hershey in the long hall advancing with a small squad where he had engaged the paramilitaries. "Dredd reporting."

Hershey doesn't look away from her position on point, gesturing him to the front of the squad. "Layout?"

Dredd draws his Lawgiver, easing into position at Hershey's shoulder, "Corridor 20 meters, minimum. Cell door at 5 meters, empty. Barracks or duty room around the corner, 10 maybe 15 meters."

Hershey nods curtly, advancing to the first door, waiting until her squad is in place before knocking the broken door down, sweeping through the room and confirming it to be empty of people. She activates her glove unit, speaking quickly. "Tek Squad to my location, priority alpha." Moving back on point, she leads back out of the room, rear guard falling into position. They advance, moving past the corpses that have Dredd's marksmanship clearly visible. "Looters?" She inquires, nudging a grimy sock clad foot out of her way.

One pair of boots and one coat are all that's missing, and Dredd knows who's responsible for those. "Negative."

"When we're done, I want your full report." Hershey mutters over her shoulder, and chooses to interpret his grunt as affirmation. She leads onwards, pausing again before the second door, visibly unlatched, pushing through and scanning the equally empty room, a few unfolded chairs, two cots with blankets folded on the foot, but otherwise nothing. A careful examination of the premises turns up yet more nothing, no auxiliaries, no weapons, no IDs. Bizarre, in her experience, but perhaps the guards were slightly more professional than Mega City One's average security thug. A comprehensive examination of the corpses outside may yield more data. She files the thought away for later and pushes back into the hall, past the rear guard.

The corridor terminates abruptly a few meters past the empty rooms, and some instinct tells Hershey that this is wrong. The configurations of the previous rooms don't make sense with this emptiness. It takes a minute to pull up the floor plans for the building, another minute to zoom in on her current location, showing a door where her eyes see only wallpaper. Different courses of action present themselves, each examined and dismissed until a solid executable plan is achieved. "Dredd, point. There's a door right here." She nudges him an inch to the left, taking a flanking position to the side as the other three form around him.

Dredd gives only the briefest warning before slamming his boot through the paper, reinforced heel sundering the fibrous building materials, locks breaking with distinctive pings and crashing through the gap into the dark chamber sealed from the rest of the building. His helmet adjusts to the dim lighting of a dozen video screens, and he picks his target in a split second as twin shots flash past his elbows, taking the throat from one guard and getting lost in the shoulder of another. His attention is taken by a small figure in a white lab coat, half rising from the chair and moving his hand from pocket to mouth. Time slows as he leaps, tackling his suspect as the chair skids on its wheels and crashes into a third guard from behind. He lands on his target, pinning the scientist and crushing a flailing wrist efficiently. By the time he's leveraged the suicide pill out of the limp fingers, Hershey's controlled the last living guard, and one of her minions is fitting cuffs on the dazed goon. "Catch," He flicks the little capsule at Hershey, rolling his limp captive over and securing hands and feet before looking around the room. More screens, some looking like the ones that had surrounded Anderson, and others still blinking to some nefarious purpose, a few beds, cabinets, and a door.

Hershey catches the thing Dredd flicks at her, glances between it and the second door in the room. "Escher, Finch, Garreth: follow that door. Find out where it comes out." She holds the pill up to the light, watching the analysis scroll past her visor until her squad is gone from sight. "Suicide pill? How'd you know?"

"Lucky guess," Dredd shrugs, it seemed perfectly obvious at the time. "How many objects that you keep in your pocket would you put in your mouth in the heat of battle? Lets bring him in for interrogation." He catches himself before phrasing it as an order. Anyone else in this position and he wouldn't think twice about chains of command or field authority. But it's Hershey, still barely a year into her new position and fighting gamely against her image as his sidekick. He wants to respect that.

"Dredd, wait." Frustration weights heavily in Hershey's voice, "I need to know what you're not telling me. Did you know this was here? Do you know who that is?" She exhales slowly, almost a sigh, and glances at the displays, watching her forensics team bustle into the room with a gurney and begin their arcane process of examining the apparatus.

Trusting Judge Barbara Hershey is a gamble he'll take most of the time. "Never seen a lab that didn't have a geek watching over it." He glances at the still unconscious scientist on the floor. "He's the criminal here, not Carson's 'suspect'."

Before Hershey can respond, Judge Garreth's voice resonates in her ear, "Tunnel comes out in a garage, sir. Mid-sized transport vehicle, unmarked, keys in the ignition. GPS coords for Carmine Block, in the Diamond District. Pursue?"

"Negative," Hershey responds curtly, "Call a truck and seal the egress." She forestalls Dredd's motion to pick up his perp with a gesture and a question. "What did you do with the... victim you liberated?"

Dredd frowns, gently pushing Hershey's hand out of the way and forcing the unconscious man's limp mouth open. "Brought her back to my place." He sincerely wishes his one time partner was not wearing her helmet, he would have liked seeing the expression on her face. Instead he focuses on testing his captive's teeth, one by one, until he finds a molar that doesn't quite match its neighbors. He twists gently, and the false tooth separates from the gum with a squelch, holding it up for scrutiny.

"You didn't." Hershey refuses to let anything distract her from her current trajectory of thought.

"I did."

Her hands come off her hips then, and for a moment Barbara Hershey contemplates punching her one time mentor, long time friend, and current subordinate. His helmet would probably break her hand, and she settles for clasping them over her visor in agonizing frustration. "God DAMN it, Joe. Why?"

Dredd reconsiders his initial trust in Hershey, finds it still intact, and speaks the truth his mind has been dancing around for the past hour. "It was Anderson." He frowns at the readout from his visor. "Strange that a man with transport so close would go for a suicide pill, don't you think?"

The gears in Hershey's head grind as duty and sympathy tug the conversation in opposing direction. "Maybe the transport wasn't for him. Maybe he screwed up in the heat of battle. Tell me about Anderson, is she okay?"

"She will be. It was ugly, Hershey, Code Nine." Hershey's wince of sympathy lances through him. "I got her out. Couldn't take her back to the Hall of Justice and made a call that she wasn't ready to integrate with the civilian population. That narrowed down the options." He pauses, weighing his next statement with some care. "Could you do me a favor? I'd like to know who processed Anderson's resignation."

The visible part of Hershey's face looks mildly surprised at the sudden shift in conversation. "What do you suspect?"

"Anderson's calling foul play."

"And you believe her."

Dredd gives the slightest of shrugs, hefting the bound scientist upright. "She hasn't been wrong yet."

Hershey shakes her head, stepping back into the light of the corridor. "You're taking one hell of a risk, Joe."

"Only if I'm wrong." Dredd stands, pushing the false tooth into Hershey's hand, and grabbing his suspect by the collar. "See you back at headquarters."

His captive comes awake during their descent in the elevator, changing consciousness indicated first by an abrupt shift in his breathing, then a futile struggle against the restraints. Dredd throws his weight behind spinning the scientist around and slamming him, face first into the reflective siding of the elevator. Wrath roars through his veins, and breathing hard he forces it to recede. This isn't Peachtrees. He's in control. Anderson is safe. The Interrogators waiting for him in the Halls of Justice get far better results than ad hoc beatings. He allows a small flicker of satisfaction at the man's desperation, mouth working frantically to locate the missing tooth. Roughly he drags the scientist away from the wall as the elevator dings their arrival on the ground floor, propelling him out and into the waiting transporter.

Dredd waits, resting in a cramped chair in one of the many small halls gridding the undersides of the Hall of Justice. A blond woman approaches, striking in her immaculate appearance and trimmed suit, edged with the white braid of an Interrogator. Wearily he stands, out of habit more than anything else. "Ma'am." Interrogators aren't Judges though they technically operate through the SJS Division. They're creepy, isolated, and intended to be that way. Who else would watch the watchmen?

The woman smiles with red, red lips and shakes his hand delicately. "Judge Dredd, how do you do?" She looks him over briefly, analyzing, judging in her own right, and extracts her hand. "You asked to observe?"

He nods impassively, "I did."

"I see." The woman presses her mouth into a thin line. "This way." She turns on her heel and marches down the narrow hall, pausing before a long tinted window looking in on a spartan room, empty save for two chairs and a scarred table holding a gleaming white case and a man, bound, bagged and stripped to his underpants. The similarity to Anderson's state is striking, and he's not sure if it's symbolic or coincidence. "We'll begin in a minute." Palming a sensor, the Interrogator slips through the reinforced door, staccato tapping of her heels fading as the door slams shut behind her. The prisoner jumps at the sudden sound, cringing as the ties on his arms bite into soft skin.

The Interrogator sashays slowly across the room, pausing to open the case, remove a small spritzer and closes her toolbox before whipping the bag off with a flourish. As the man blinks, trying to readjust his vision to the light she hits him full in the face with a blast of purple mist. The resulting scream echoing and reverberating through the speaker causes Dredd to suppress a flinch. The Interrogator simply leans against the table, crossing her ankles and smiling whimsically. "Hello, Johan Levine."

Dredd watches grimly, contributing only to add a question or ask for elaboration. Answers flow like water under the Interrogator's technique, tripping over each other in the scientist's haste to give them out. How much truth they contain is anyone's guess, but most of what Citizen Levine says, or screams, won't be too difficult to confirm between Anderson's testimony and forensic's analysis.

Thinking of Anderson keeps the anger warm in his chest as the hours drag on. Every answer given, every scream, every bit of blood shed is justice for her and her victims. That righteousness gives him the power to watch impassively and press deeper when the Interrogator's exhausted her list of questions. It ends, eventually, when the questions and follow ups and tricks of rephrasing have all been exhausted. Dredd remains by the window as the Interrogator steps back into the hall, peeling long rubber gloves off and tossing them casually into a bin. "He's all yours, Judge."

Dredd presses his hand against the censor, paranoia insisting he know for sure that he's capable of escaping the interrogation room without external assistance. The light flashes green, reading his access through the membrane of his glove and opening the heavy door. Slowly he treads across the grated floor, a detached part of his mind wondering how the woman managed to walk through here in heels without falling. He takes his time studying the perpetrator from all angles, slumped over, wheezing, long past the point of crying or begging. A full confession as the kidnapper of Civilian Cassandra Anderson, head of the Mutant Research for Red Pharma. His plan, his experiments, his execution. The little voice that isn't ever quite in line with the rest of his thinking pipes up again, unwelcome._ Perhaps execution should be postponed until the details can be confirmed._ He dismisses it as irrelevant and draws his Lawgiver. "Your crimes are kidnapping, torture, illegal human experimentation, and the murder of twelve citizens of Mega City One. The verdict is guilty. The sentence is death." He shoots. The body twitches from the impact of the projectile then returns to its motionless state. Mechanically he returns to the door, stepping through as the Interrogator opens it for him. "Send me a copy of the recording."

"I will," The Interrogator smiles humorlessly. "You have a pleasant day." She walks off, the sound of her heels clicking against the floor persisting long after she's disappeared around a corner.

Exhaustion weighs him down as he navigates through the honeycomb hallways, each step is effort. Dredd's been awake and on duty for nearly forty hours now, and he's ready to call it a day. Grimly he makes his way back to his Lawmaster, driving back to his offsite apartment with more care than normal. It would be unbearably stupid to crash now, of all times. With some surprise he finds himself back at the imposing building without incident, docking his bike and giving it the quickest of examinations before trudging back to his unit. Muscle memory gets him past the lock and he nearly trips over the girl kneeling just inside the entrance. Maria. Right, he had asked her to wait. "Here, you're dismissed. Thanks." His words slur together despite his best efforts, and he reminds himself to settle the expense with Nico later.

The maid gives him a rabbit-y look of wariness and awe, garbles something that might be prayer or possibly a curse and dodges around him out the door.

Dredd lets her go. He's rapidly losing the fight to keep his eyes open and mind focused, and while his bed isn't a possible destination, he would prefer to land in a chair and not on the floor. His helmet weighs heavy in his hands as he places it reverently on a side table. The visor watches sightlessly as he fumbles the straps of his bulletproof vest, tossing the heavy garment into a corner with his utility belt follows suit a moment later. Everything else can wait. Gratefully he sinks into the soft cushions, eyes already closed. A moment passes and he identifies the last shreds of discomfort keeping him away from unconscious bliss. Removing his gloves pushes the limits of dexterity, but he lets them fall away with a quiet grunt, pulling the zipper of his jacket down and falling headfirst into the healing darkness.


	6. Chapter 6

_A/N: Hellooo readers! I told you it wouldn't take three weeks for this next update, though that's at the expense of proofreading and editing. Win some, lose some. Thanks everyone who's taken the time to favorite and follow, and special super thanks to those who take the time to review. It is sublimely helpful and inspiring. _

* * *

His dreams are strange colored in foreign shades of _pain-fear-anger_ and a hundred silent souls _screaming_ in his head cursing his name and all he reveres. Their suffering cuts deeply,_ wounds of guilt_ that he'll carry forever marking him a _monster_ and he can do nothing to stop the assault. _It's all he deserves_. A scream, not imagined, rips through the silent apartment jerking Dredd from his rest prematurely. He's on his feet instantly, Lawgiver out and ready before his sleep slowed mind can process his surroundings. Cautiously he looks around the still room, checking the lock on the door. Finding them intact he moves into his bedroom. Quiet, more or less, save for Anderson struggling in the depths of dream. Slowly he slides his weapon back into place weighing his next move. As he stalls, the woman on the bed lets out another ear piercing shriek, galvanizing him to action. He does not care overmuch what the neighbors think, but he still has a vested interest in getting back to sleep while he can. "Anderson, wake up." Shaking her shoulder does nothing to rouse her, though even in sleep she brings her arms up defensively, digging her fingertips into his wrist. The pain is a goddamned nuisance, and he uses his free hand to drag the clawing fingers away, pinning the offending limb to the bed as she writhes in unconscious panic. "Anderson. Judge Anderson. Cassandra WAKE UP."

Her eyes snap open, uncomfortably wide and unnaturally bright, staring up at the strange face leaning in over her. She's halfway to executing a defensive counter grapple when some vague sense of familiarity causes her to hesitate. "Dredd?" Slowly she relaxes, easing herself upright against the light resistance on her shoulder. "What-?"

"Just a dream. Go back to sleep." He pats her shoulder awkwardly and turns to go, duty complete. A small hand snags his as he moves away and he looks back into a face forlorn and utterly, painfully alone.

"Wait. Please." She feels him, warm and solid and real in the way that nothing else in the world is. Her agonizing responsibility can't supersede the connection. Not right now. She draws her knees up, resting her chin on them and staring out into an abyss.

He can't abandon her in this utter desolation. His own nightmares linger uncomfortably on the edges of memory. With some small resignation he disentangles his hand from cold grasping fingers, removing his dirty leather jacket and tossing it over the headboard. Silently he takes a seat on the edge of the bed beside her. There's nothing he can say.

Anderson heaves a deep, shuddering sigh, unwilling to put words to her pain, but unable to endure bottling them up. "I killed them. Those people." She doesn't seek out his hand again, squeezing her arms around the lump her knees make under the blanket. "They were right." Her voice cracks with pain beyond the point of tears.

"Who?" He's the wrong person to be doing this. He's never been one to have the right words at the right time. He can't offer therapy, insight or comfort; can't explain how entirely absolutely wrong she is in words she'll be able to accept. But it has to be done, apparently, so she's stuck with him.

"Just... everyone. Just like they said. I'm a freak." She tries to laugh, it comes out a fractured choking sound instead. "I'm dangerous."

"So am I." Dredd shrugs eloquently, the motion brushing his shoulder against her back for a part of a second. "You wouldn't be any good if you weren't."

She shivers as the fleeting instant of contact ends. He's so warm. The thought floats through her mind unbidden without a follow up chastisement. The heat radiates off his bare skin, warming her through the thick canvas of her coat. His words are warm, too. She wishes she could believe them. "You don't kill civilians accidentally."

The loathing in her voice blindsides him for a moment. "This wasn't your fault." He knows, too late, that it's the wrong thing to say. She tries to scrunch into a smaller ball and edge away from him at the same time, though there isn't anywhere for her to go.

"Anyone else and those people would have lived." Anguish overcomes her, tears escaping the dam of her will. "I heard them, Dredd. I knew what I was doing to them and I could FEEL them and I couldn't..." She has to stop to gasp for breath. "I couldn't stop."

He has to do something, anything to stop the wretched litany coming out of her mouth. There are no answers he can give. Nothing he can say will free her from the chains of guilt she's bound herself in. Wordlessly, instinctively, he holds out his hand to her.

Anderson is utterly dumbly shocked at the simple gesture. All her answers to pithy words dry in her mouth as she stares at the extended hand still sporting white tape across the knuckles. Tentatively she shifts closer, waiting to for him to tell her to stop, make some move to push her away. He doesn't so she huddles in a small ball of misery tucked against his side, crying silently.

This isn't really what Dredd envisioned, but its curiously satisfying. He can do this, even if he's incapable of anything else. Slowly, with just a trace of awkward unfamiliarity, he wraps an arm around her shoulders. He can't lift her out of the dark place that holds her now, but he can offer support and kindness while she resides there. The quiet helpless sounds of her cries change slowly as the night wanes, as he rests beside her.

Anderson gasps for breath an untold time later, wiping futilely at her dripping eyes and nose. It would be a lie to say she feels better. She brought horrible suffering to many, and that's a truth she has to live with. She will live with it; make peace with the wretched soul that hurt so many when the chains slipped away leaving her feral and raw. It's either that or leaden despair and oblivion and she has work to do. Later, after some sleep. Carefully she uncurls, stretching her cramped legs beneath the blanket. The warm quiet stoicism that encircles her, anchors her,retreats at her movement. She misses it and feels strangely vulnerable. The comfort of touch is an insidious thing, an unforgivably human need that overwrites all her conditioning and careful discipline. "Wait."

Dredd freezes, halfway to standing and curses himself for the hesitation. He's tired, she's tired and neither of them are operating at full functionality. "Go to sleep," He grumbles at her with no real annoyance, clenching his teeth to stifle the jaw cracking yawn.

She smiles sleepily at his words, his sleep addled state fuzzing the rigid edge of his mind. The gruff tone can't disguise the emotion behind his words. "Will you stay?" She doesn't want to plead, it's too much effort right now. She doesn't reach out for him this time, simply eases herself onto the hard mattress and stares up at him through half closed eyes.

Somehow he's still sufficiently in control to avoid doing anything truly damning as Anderson stretches out on his mattress. He's teetering on the brink now: if he reached out to stroke some messy yellow hair out of her face now he'd be lost forever. But he stays, for some inexplicable reason. His knees pop uncomfortable as he eases himself onto the thinly carpeted floor, rolling up his dirty street as a makeshift pillow. He sleeps then, caught in tangled dreams of loyalty, comfort and strength, at rest and at peace.

Dredd comes awake again, a natural process of easing from a state of unconsciousness into awareness. He stands slowly, loosening stiff muscles and glancing back to the bed where Anderson rests, a comically stern expression on her face. He shakes his head to break the fixation and trudges into the small bathroom. He tries not to think too much, turning the shower on and stripping away the remains of his dirty street gear. With a sniff and grimace he consigns it all to the cleaner and steps under scalding spray, rinsing away dried sweat and dirt, relaxing slowly into the sensation. Too soon, his unrelenting sense of duty reappears, demanding to get on with his morning and receive the day's assignments, look over Hershey's reports from yesterday. He cuts the torrent of water, letting yesterday's complications swirl down the drain with yesterday's dirt. Grabbing a towel he rubs the lingering wetness from his skin, tying it around his waist and stepping back into his bedroom. He's greeted by the startling sight of a bare back undulating as Anderson finishes pulling down a sports bra, hitching her shoulders to adjust the garment. He clamps a white-knuckled fist over the knot holding his towel up, as though some malevolence would seize the moment to unveil his modesty before an unsuspecting guest.

Anderson turns instinctively at the sound behind her, fidgeting with the itchy elastic strap. She should have expected it, but can't quite control her expression at the sight of Dredd fresh from the shower, staring back with an equally thunderstruck look. A hundred small personal details burn their way into her mind: a blackened toenail on his left foot, sharp line of his clavicle highlighted by the light of the bathroom, a trickle of water sliding down his sternum, stranglehold on a flimsy damp towel, flat black eyes that pin her in place. Swallowing, mouth suddenly dry, she turns her back on him to break the stare and walks out into the main room, tugging her sagging gym shorts up as she shuts the door on his privacy. Wearily she drags herself to the corner where the battered heavy bag hangs. She steels herself for discomfort and disappointment; it's been far too long since her last physical conditioning.

Moving into the familiar pattern, she begins with jacks, arms and legs moving in jerky, repetitive motions, flailing and falling out of sync. She stops, corrects her coordination, and begins again. It's torment, raw and frustrating, sweat dripping down her nose and itching between her shoulders, pushing herself until she burns with exertion. Sitting heavily, she moves to pushups then crunches, focusing her anger on pushing herself_. I will be strong again_. Slowly she stands on aching legs, rocking back and forth to find her balance then closes in on the heavy bag, raining blow after blow on its rough skin. It hurts, a burn that starts in her shoulders and spreads to her back and arms and stomach, but it's a good hurt. A growing hurt. Her mind becomes a quiet place, empty of everything except the desire to land one more punch. One more kick. One more. _One more._

She emerges from the reverie trembling and exhausted, reborn, and staggers to the small sink in the galley. Desperately she swallows handfuls of lukewarm water, splashing some on sweat slicked skin. It's a start, though not a great one, but she will fight through this. Tomorrow will be easier. Heavily she rests her weight against the counter, running wet fingers through her hot lank hair, looking around the room until she locates Dredd fixated upon something on his video monitor. Had he been watching her pitiful attempts? Is she of no consequence now? Something complicated and undefined twists her stomach, and she shoves away from the counter, wobbling determinedly back toward the bedroom. "I'm going to shower."

"Good idea," Dredd doesn't look away from the documents Hershey sent, trying to keep his focus on the work in front of him and not the half clad woman crossing out of his field of view. Now's not the time for oggling. With renewed discipline he focuses on Hershey's missive, blocking out the muted sound of running water and distracting mental images._ Joe, Resignation processed and approved by generic admin account. No log in record. Escalating in accordance with protocol breach. -BH_ He frowns, skimming over the field report from the crime scene, slowing when he gets to the report compiled by the Tek squad. By and large it's indecipherable babble about the equipment and chemicals which had been present on site. A dense section of records analysis follows, pondering the information that had been accumulated on Anderson during her imprisonment, and some hypotheses to the nature of the experiments. He files the speculation away for future consideration, and moves to the highlighted section: Prognosis._ Extrapolating from lab results and patient's excellent medical history, a full recovery can be expected within 1 to 2 weeks, with the worst symptoms of detoxification clearing up after the first four days. Residual neural scarring will persist for upwards of 3 years but there is no indication that this will have any significant effects on patient's daily life. An interview with the patient is required for more extensive understanding of injuries sustained._ Tension drains out of him, relief that he hadn't damaged the girl irreparably. He owes Hershey for this, and probably quite a lot. Not that she'll let him forget.

Anderson slinks back into his field of view, fiddling with a button on her borrowed civilian garb. He beckons her over, scooting his chair to the side to allow her some space in front of the console. "What's the status?"

"I'm fine, sir."

Briskly he gestures her to take a seat beside him and takes a quick gamble. "I have the reports from the incident yesterday. Do you have anything to add?"

"Sir?" She looks perplexed.

"Your report, Anderson. Sit. Talk."

Obediently she drags a footstool closer and perches on the edge, looking through the video monitor with a thousand yard stare. "Corey, that is, Judge Sky and I were patrolling Sector 4. We got a call from Control that a Pharma van had been spotted down on the western border." Dredd gives a grunt of disapproval, then motions for her to continue. "We found it parked outside, right where Control said it had been spotted. I suggested," She swallows thickly, "I suggested we go in and investigate. There had to be a reason the truck was out there. We went down to the basement first, and I felt, I knew something was wrong." Closing her eyes, she struggles to recall the sensation, the distant call to action. "It was an ambush. We held them at the stairs but they got around us and they had gas and stunners. Something hit Corey." Slowly she opens her eyes, forcing the memory down. She will not go to pieces now. "I woke up, I don't know where, or when. There were men, guards mostly. A scientist, too. It's... fuzzy, mostly. They had a lot of drugs, things in syringes."

Dredd waits as the monologue trails off, bypassing his initial criticisms. Some lessons are punishment on their own. "No psychic stuff?"

Anderson chokes on a burble of humorless laughter. "I tried at first. They had something, they could tell when I was doing it. Brain scan, maybe, I'm not sure. They," She gestures vaguely at her clothed torso, looking for the correct euphemism. "They had a pretty good method for keeping me out."

"Stun baton?" It's hardly a great leap of logic , the lingering patches of burned skin are a decent indicator.

"Close enough," Anderson shrugs uncomfortably. "I got a confession from the scientist, Doctor L-Something, that Red Pharma was implicit in my capture. They weren't huge fans of my actions."

Dredd nods, "We got a confession from him, too."

She freezes, the entirety of her attention focused on him. "Where is he?"

"Crematorium," Her stare is too intense without his visor, but he meets her gaze squarely. "He was judged yesterday."

_It's not fair_. The sentiment rips through her, bitter anger and disappointment. A hopelessly juvenile reaction, her revenge cannot be allowed to taint the Law. It's a lecture she's heard too many times. All that should matter is those bastards can't repeat their act on anyone. But she still wishes that she could have had something a bit more red to the elbows. Maybe then it would have felt like a conclusion. "You got a confession?"

He nods once and opens the video file. "Yeah."

Anderson leans in as the image stabilizes, watching intently. The tableau plays out on the small screen, the woman with her implements and her questions orbiting around the hapless man. The information, spewed desperately, is of cursory interest to her. She knows the name, Levine, and she knows his association with Red Pharma, though she hadn't known he was head of Radiology Research or that he specialized in Chromosomal Degeneracy. "Wait, stop. Rewind 10 seconds." She scoots closer to the screen as Dredd complies.

".._.in charge of this research_?"

"_Me! It was my project, my idea. My area of expertise, you see."_

_"You were acting alone?"_

A ragged shriek. "_Entirely_!" The prisoner cringes.

_"That's quite an undertaking for one man working alone. All that equipment. All those soldiers to be paid. Are you sure you didn't have someone else involved? Maybe offsite? Maybe funding?"_

The doctor makes a wet gagging sound, gurgles, and lets out a choked sob."_All through a grant! We don't ask! We're not supposed to know! I don't know who it came from, only that it was forthcoming!"_

Anderson pauses the video herself, staring at the frozen image. "He's lying." She struggles internally, trying to coax a thread of memory out of this conviction. "Another man was there, once or twice." Flawless white teeth, empty eyes, the smell of absolute power and confidence. "A superior of some sort."

"Oh?"

She gives him a disbelieving look, "I know toadying when I see it, sir. Doctor Levine was taking direct orders." She scowls at the screen, dark shadows cutting through the ethereal LED glow. "Did the perpetrator recant?"

"No," Dredd matches her frown for frown. "Do you have any information to go on? A name? Evidence?"

"I don't," Anderson admits tiredly, "but I know what I saw. Do you doubt me?" As stressful as this is, as much as she needs him as an ally, it's going to be absolutely infuriating to be called a liar.

Her question, posed so bluntly, gives Dredd pause. He does trust her, for all her inexperience and quirks of personality and occasional bouts of unpredictability. He trusts her honesty even if he occasionally finds reason to question her judgement. But how sound could he judgement have been as a drugged prisoner? In light of his hallucinations, or the hallucinations of the other residents, he has to consider that perhaps her memory is equally artificial.

The lack of response unnerves her. Dredd's hardly loquacious, but even he should have been able to manage a yes or no. _You couldn't really expect him to go all in with you. Judge Dredd doesn't trust ANYBODY._ She grimaces at the turbulence of thought coming off him and tries not to pry.

"What I think is irrelevant." He hedges stubbornly. "Truth or not we've got nothing to go on." It's revolting to think that the orchestrator behind this crime is free, frustrating to see justice wither unrealized, but it's a fact of life. Some creeps are too smart to be caught with the current resources.

Anderson's frown lingers as she props her elbows on the desk and resumes watching. She has no answer for Dredd's response, but she doesn't like it and she doesn't agree. She knows her unnamed captor's appearance and she knows his affiliation with Red Pharma. It's most definitely not nothing, enough to work with once she returns to active duty. Returning her meandering attention to the video screen, she tries to watch impassively as the mysterious case is opened, shallow trays of needles and scalpels fanning out with menacing elegance. A tedious explanation of each item follows, with occasional pauses for demonstrations and the wretchedness settles over Anderson like a confectionery glaze. She wants justice, yes, but this is too impersonal, slow and gruesome. It's almost a relief when, hours later, Dredd appears on screen, delivers the sentence and pulls the trigger. "You were there the whole time?"

"I requested it." Dredd watches the slumped woman out of the corner of his eye, suppressing the urge to offer her comfort. The actions that had been toeing the line last night were in no way appropriate for the light of day. When she jerks upright at his statement he almost smiles. "Internal Affairs is better at getting answers than asking questions."

Anderson wrinkles her nose at the implications presented in that statement. "He's a lying prick. I don't have any evidence and he's a dead lying prick now, anyway." She gives her mentor the briefest look of reproach. "Is there anything else I can look at?"  
Wordlessly he opens the relevant files and pushes out of his chair, stretching muscles gone stiff through inaction and crosses the room to the corner that serves as a kitchen. His stomach grumbles as he keys in an order for lunch. A drawer slides out with a click and he removes the two silver boxes, placing them on the counter and popping the seals. They hiss and vent steam, contained reaction heating the contents to palate-ability in seconds. Scorching his fingers, he carries the cartons back to the desk where Anderson has usurped his chair and deposits one a safe distance from her elbow and retreats to the comfort of his armchair to consume the nutritionally complete but not entirely pleasant blend of protein and carbohydrate.

Anderrson puts the food in her mouth mechanically, entirely absorbed in the Tek reports. Most of it escapes her but some of it starts to make sense by the time she's thumbing through the appendices, endless copies of charts and daily reports taken from her prison. She scrolls down a page and freezes, rereading the headings several times before delicately pushing the box of food away and twisting awkwardly to look at Dredd behind her. "Look at this."

Leveraging himself out of the chair while holding a half full plate is a delicate operation, but Dredd succeeds none the less. Polishing off the rest of the meal he crosses to look over Anderson's shoulder. It's one chart identical to hundreds more in the appendix documents Tek sent, easily skipped by someone in a hurry. The headings are disturbing:_ Date, Time, Isoflavonine Dose, Neuphetamine Dose, Resting Heart Rate, Respiratory Rate, Electrogalvany Scale, PsyAmp_. Meticulous columns of numbers fall into place below, twice a day for the last several weeks. "Show me the glossary." She obeys without comment, though not as efficiently as he would have liked. Leaning in over her, he takes control, scrolling to the chemical analyses. He reads aloud, "In preliminary experiments, substance Isoflavonine was shown to increase neural activity in frontal lobes by 65%, increase heart rate and blood pressure by 50% and reduce neural activity in occipidal lobes by 45%..." He breaks off, skipping to the second chemical impatiently.

Anderson picks up the narration, "Substance Neuphetamine is a psycho-stimulant in the same family as the illicit street drug amphetamine. While sharing many biochemical effects with its illicit cousin, Neuphetamine can be classified as a derivative. This anomaly causes the initial high to last several hours past the median and for the elevated mental state to persist for up to a week..." She wraps her arms around herself trying to ward off the memory of pricking needles.

Dredd rests a hand on her shoulder, returning to their view of the charts. "They were trying to juice you up."It's the most logical conclusion, following the correlation between the doses given and the corresponding numbers under the scales measuring neural activity and PsyAmps, whatever those are. Unwillingly, his grip on her tightens as he skims the lists of vitals. He's not a medic, but neither is he completely ignorant of human physiology and the distance to which Anderson's heart and brain had been pushed, tottering on the abyss of failure leaves him feeling cold.

His big blunt fingers bite into her shoulder, but its something she relishes it in this moment. Briefly Anderson covers his hand with hers. "Why would they want to do that? Who'd be interested in psychic steroids?"

Her question gives Dredd pause. It's a good one; psychics are as rare as innocence in this city of criminals. The level of resource seems wildly out of proportion compared to how useful such an enhancer would be. The back of his neck prickles uncomfortably with a thought too unpleasant to speak aloud and he seizes on a different anomaly to steer the conversation to. "Unusual experiment for a Radiology specialist to undertake."

Anderson freezes at the implications in his statement. "It's not evidence." She echoes his earlier words with a trace of irony. "But I think it's something to go on: a connection. Red Pharma's big, but that's got to be an uncommon field of study. It's a start." She wriggles out of his grip and looks up at his grim face earnestly. "We could nail this bastard. I can't walk away from that."

Any response he might have is cut off by a sudden blip in the corner of his video screen, an incoming call. "Move over." Gently he relegates her back to her original position on the footstool, takes his seat and activates the blinking light. Justice Herpert's stern face appears on the screen. A member of the Council of Five calling him directly? Nothing good, then.

The Justice inclines his head slightly in way of a greeting. "Put Cassandra Anderson on."

Dredd frowns at the ranking officer, suppressing the rude response that is the first thing to mind. Herpert isn't as quietly terrifying as McGruder , nothing is as frightening as the former SJS head, but he had been a Street Judge who had gotten old in a profession where people, as a rule, did not. That was to be respected. "She's here." Slowly he turns the screen to grant visual confirmation.

Justice Herpert forces a smile at the young Judge. "Hello, my dear. How are you feeling?"

The endearment is instantly alienating to Anderson. "I am well, sir." She falls quiet, watching the Justice discreetly. From the video, she can gain nothing but physical characteristics: dark skin, military haircut, high collar. The lack of psychic feedback leaves her feeling oddly deaf, straining to sense things that aren't transmitted through video. "What can I do for you, sir?"

The Justice makes what he might imagine is a genial smile. "The Council has agreed that in light of certain irregularities, your resignation is illegitimate and you are to be reinstated in full and this oddity purged from the record. The documentation is schedules to be processed within the hour, and you are to report to Medical for a full examination and resume duty upon their recommendation."

Anderson can't contain the smile that breaks out, and it takes a great act of will to keep her celebration that constrained. She had known that she would be reinstated, the world simply didn't make sense if she was kept away, but it had been a nagging doubt anyway. "Thank you, sir." She takes a deep breath, doesn't risk a glance at Dredd, and speaks. "Sir, if I may?" She waits for this great man's permission to speak. "Sir, we have reason to believe that there were accomplices to the kidnapping. I request permission to investigate the matter in full."

Justice Herpert staples his gnarled fingers under his chin and stares at the junior Judge calmly. "Request denied. You are not to involve yourself in this matter, or anything beyond your explicit duty, Judge Anderson. Your keenness is commendable and we will strive to find you more suitable outlets for your many talents."

"But sir-"

"Denied, I said." The Justice regards her dispassionately. "While we are on the subject, you are to know that all your interactions with Red Pharma, beginning with your 'investigation' through to your release, have been filed under Top Secret." He raises a dark eyebrow at her. "The consequences of such information getting out would be disastrous on a level you are not capable of comprehending." He looks between the two of them sternly, an old sergeant just waiting for the two greens in front of him to put a toe out of line. "Am I clear?"

"Yes. Sir. " Dredd answers for them both. "Is that all?" It isn't hard to imagine the pandemonium that would be unleashed if they entire mutant population found they had been conned by a bunch of rich norms.

A flicker of dislike crosses the Justice's face, smoothing over instantly. "Be very, very careful, both of you. Judge Anderson, you'll be clear by 1500. Medical will be expecting you." The screen returns to a view of the reports as the video connection is terminated.

Anderson hesitates before speaking, gaining control of both her elation and concern before speaking. "That was ominous." It's almost absurdly melodramatic, _don't tell anyone OR ELSE_. She's professional more often than not, and she'd never break confidentiality. "Do you think they suspect someone internally?"

Dredd stares at the screen where the Justice's face had been moments ago. "It's likely." He pushes away from the desk and stands, moving back to his bedroom to change back into his street uniform. Almost an afterthought, he calls over his shoulder, "Welcome back."


	7. Chapter 7

_A/N: So no one should trust me ever when I say I have any inkling about when an update is coming. This was cooking for 6 weeks in a stew of writer's block and dissatisfaction, only to be rolled out now that is has some vague semblance of decency. It's up to you to judge whether it's worth the wait or not, there's an apology buffet for those who find it lacking. For everyone else: I'm humbled and awed that, in spite of everything, people are still following and favoriting this. Thank you all._

* * *

Fifty meters from the shield wall, the city is dark. Too much sand has slipped in on the winds from the Cursed Earth, gumming up the inner workings of the generators and the turbines. Too few maintenance workers have dared the trip over the Barricade, through the slums to repair cut or stolen cables, replace the parts rusted through or cemented in place with blood red sand. They say you can feel the itch of radiation poisoning on the skin through the ten meters of solid lead. Besides, so the argument goes, there's no point to bringing electricity to that part of Mutie Town; not even the Mutants would chose to live so close to the Wall. They'd scrap it for parts, they say, and content themselves with that. Twenty meters from the wall, night reins at all hours, trapped between the derelict mega-block and the Wall, the broken down huts are bathed in sun for minutes each day as the sun finds that one sweet spot, and then hurries on, eager to be well away from the shadowy sliver of earth.

It's a perfect place for a secret meeting if you don't mind the darkness or the discomfort of gamma particles worming through your skin. In the grey dark of morning, men converge on the foundations of a house long gone from three directions. They move slowly around the fields of debris, slipping in through a partially blocked doorway, finding seats on the ruins of furniture, or on the rough cement floor, or leaning against a buckling plaster wall. Once seated, the hoods come off, ragged facial coverings pulled back to reveal faces of varying degrees of mutation and radiation poisoning.

An old man, skin grey and sagging from advanced radiation sickness, looks around at his compatriots, judging who is here and who is missing, and nods once. "Young Charlie says another child has gone missing." His voice comes out soft and sad and tired, a dry leaf rasping by its lonesome in a mild breeze.

The faces turn in synchrony toward the young man with the nicest face in the room, standing quietly off to the side. "Brenda McKittison never made it to school yesterday. This makes 15 children gone in the last week. Our new security measures are not working if a child can be snatched from the home with two vigilant parents who see nothing."

"Who claim to have seen noting?" A lank man, in the apparent grip of middle age with wide slanted eyes and an unpleasant mottling on the left side of his face, asks. "The McKittisons have never been what I'd call adequate in the ways of raising a child."

Another mutant speaks in the quiet left while his fellows recoiled from the implications. "Brenda, wasn't she one of your special kids?"

"All my students are special," the youth called Charlie retorts before he can stifle the reflex. "Yes, she was one of the talented ones, a telekinetic. All of the fifteen missing are particularly talented." He chews a hangnail before continuing. "A single person, or small team of persons, would have immense difficulty controlling these children or keeping them hidden. I believe the monsters behind this are professional, in some degree or other. I believe they are rich, and I am quite confident they are not mere members of our humble community."

"And your abilities told you all this, eh?"

Charlie frowns at the speaker, blocking out the feelings of jealousy and fear. "To some degree, yes, Mr. Skinner. I know your opinion on mutants of peculiar ability, but your opinions do not change the truth. If these children, my students, were within five kilometers of the barricade I could search their little minds out. I cannot. They have been taken deep into Mega-City, I don't know where."

"Have the Judges been told?" A speaker sitting on the floor pipes up. "Kidnapping's still a crime, ain't it?"

"Marla Drapes went when the first ones disappeared," the elderly man who had opened the conversation nods slowly. "She was rebuffed at the access point. Darren Huchen went yesterday, before I was told about Brenda. I believe has been taken into custody for wasting the Judges' time."

"That's Darren for you." Mr. Skinner pointed out prosaically. "I told you we should have sent someone else, Elder Wilde, no offense meant. Lucky for him that's all he got."

The Elder's been alive too long, worked with too many like Skinner for the casual pettiness and spite to faze him now. What are one man's small evils compared to anything they face now? "I have been led to believe Mr. Huchen went on his own initiative, and we cannot belittle him for that." Not when so few have any call to action anymore, but he is wiser than to speak the thought aloud. "But between him and Marla's response, we are clearly on our own in this matter."

A scruffy young man spits on the concrete floor. "What else is new, chief? We're shit to them, trash. They don't patrol here, not in my lifetime anyway, they don't stop the Norms who sneak in to steal or rape or burn things, people even." He gives the bright sliver of sky above them a mutinous look. "We got to do something."

"Easy, Kristof." Elder Wilde casts a wary eye around his surroundings. You could never know who might be paying attention, in a surveillance drone in the sky, or a microchip in the wall. Or someone's headscarf. "What value is there in rebellion if the seeds of our future are snatched away?"

"The 'seeds of our future'?" The words curdle in the air when Kristof says them. "Has anyone told you your rhetoric is as old and stupid as your policy? We can't protect those kids, or any kids, or even ourselves. Maybe they're better off somewhere else. We can't depend on a bunch of babies to fix our problems." He scowls at Charlie, antagonism at the world forcing itself out in any direction possible. "Have you been in touch with the other Mutant Sectors? Are they having the same problem?"

It's hard to take offense at the evil look his cousin sends him. Charlie knows it's not meant personally, he can all but taste the frustrated rage radiating off Kristof. "I sent out a feeler late last night. It'll take a little time for them to go down the chain to all the other Sectors. Why?"

Kristof ignores his older audience, pacing around the narrow confines of the building. "The Judges can ignore one of us. They can ignore two of us. Can they ignore all 80 million? We're reasonable people, really." He raises a preemptive middle finger in Skinner's direction. "Justice for all, right? The basic principle on which society was founded."

"You're risking block warfare!" For the first time in several years Elder Wilde raises his voice in anger. "Do you think the Judges will be impressed by a big turnout? Your big mouth? The Norms will riot; and we'll be shoved down so far they'll have to kneel down to spit on us. People will die! And for what? Sit down and shut up, boy."

Kristof does not sit down and Kristof does not shut up. "It's all a lie, isn't it?" He boggles at the realization. "This little council is just sad sick men playing at self determination. You're too scared of losing your shitty status quo to do anything, aren't you?" He shakes his head, "This doesn't work for me. I have a sister too, you know, even if she isn't special enough to be kidnapped by bogeymen. She still deserves more than the shitty life we're building for her here." He hesitates for a barely noticeable moment. "You guys do what you think is best, and I'll do what I think is best. See you, Charlie." He's out the door, wrapping his hood back over his face as he runs.

"That was a bit of a scene," Skinner points out primly in the hush that follows. "I suppose there's always a zealot wherever you look. Do you have anything to add, Charles?"

Charlie shakes his head slightly. "I can't blame a man for doing what he thinks is best."

"Wise words," Elder Wilde motions for the group to settle down. "But I meant what I said about the Block War. Neither you nor your cousin was born when the last one raged through Mega-City One. I would not wish another to happen in your lifetime, or any other. I know you trust him, and it is good for family to keep each other's confidences, but please; I beg you to be careful in what you tell him."

"I understand, Elder." Charlie leaves it at that; let the men listening divine his obedience on their own. He is not their puppet. "Back to the topic at hand, I have taken steps to secure the safety of the remaining students. The school has been closed until further notice, and the parents have been informed." He nods sadly at the concerned murmuring that sweeps across the group. "It is a terrible thing, but should hopefully be a short term solution. Too many children have vanished going to or from school; it is insane to risk them unnecessarily. The knowledge is not going anywhere. I am not going anywhere." He tries to smile reassuringly.

"You're not worried about your own safety?" A long quiet attendee inquires. "If someone is targeting the talented Mutants, wouldn't you be high on their lists?"

Charlie shrugs, "I cannot stop them from trying, but no I am not worried." A little white lie, he's not terribly worried. He is strong and clever. If that is not enough, then he is fucked anyway and there's no point losing extra sleep over it. Better to worry about what he can control than what he can't.

That point of business concluded, Elder Wilde directs the meeting back to the original agenda; neighborhood patrol rotas, cleaning crew assignments, and other small gestures that would lend some semblance of normality and control to the battered mutant community. He's in the midst of opening the floor to the other attendees when a flurry of crunching footsteps and ragged breathing approaching halts him midsentence. As a unit, the mutants prepare to flee, and then as a unit freeze as the recently resigned Kristof bursts in, hobbling on a bad ankle.

"That was quick," Skinner, eternally helpful, points out.

"Norms approaching!" It comes out a wheeze from the exhausted man. "Mob of Norms!"

Charlie shuts his eyes tightly and slaps his hands over his ears. In the dark silence he can feel the tidal wave of rage spreading across the quiet community: smashing possessions, sundering buildings, riotous bottomless range and need to destroy. To find. An overriding imperative, driving the madness onwards. Loss feeding rage, hope feeding destruction. He opens his eyes, mind still drifting on distant currents of emotion and thought. "The children… I must find then… Protect them… We are not so alone after all…" Caught between his own thoughts and those of others, he turns on his heel and runs.

Kristof dodges out of the way as his cousin darts off on some peculiar task, muttering incoherently. Bracing his hands on his knees, he looks up at the remainders. "They're hurting people. We cannot do nothing."

Elder Wilde frowns after the retreating back of Charlie. "You are right," he forces the words out as though they hurt to speak. "But we cannot match them in violence. Skinner, mobilize the crews. Get medics out, get buckets on standby. Lewis, open the nearest tunnels, get your runners out. Stoddard, Meriweather, get your contacts in the gangs. See if we can route them back to the Barricade. My friends, let us focus on resolving this crisis, then we shall look to our kids."

* * *

Her time in Medical stretches into a tedious sort of infinity, and being released is like an amalgamation of all the Christmases of a lifetime condensed into a single afternoon. It takes a great deal of discipline for Anderson to walk from Medical to Logistics and then back to her newly assigned room in Housing without breaking a normal stride. Her newly conditioned body wants to run or dance or possibly even frolic, though she's not entirely sure what that would entail. It's enough that she can move with power and grace, it's something to celebrate. A new number on her door, a new key code to access it and finally she is home.

The door swishes shut before her and she hesitates, listening to the ordinary quiet sounds of a quiet hallway before dashing around her new quarters, inspecting the facilities. All perfectly standard issue, of course, from the newly issued Street Uniforms hanging in the sanitization closet to the wrapped bar of soap in the shower. New soap in the shower! Gently she lifts the small paper wrapped bar, relishing the waxy texture of the paper, the familiar chemical smell. Home: familiar and strange. The manic euphoria drains abruptly, and she passes over the cellophane wrapped toothbrush and facecloth, noting their existence and the small but persistent leak of the tap, returning to the small main room and unbuckling her new Lawgiver in its holster and draping it over the back of the small hard chair wedged under the desk.

In so many ways it's like she never left. Same quarters, same role, even the physical evidence of the ordeal has been erased by the miracles performed by Tek physicians. But it did happen, and it's mad to try and pretend she can pick right up where she left off. There is too much that can't simply be swept under the small thin standard issue rug. Powerful new body or not, a mental weariness overtakes Anderson, and she eases onto the narrow mattress trying to reinstate discipline upon her chaotic thoughts. _Breathe in. Breathe out. Envision a pond frozen in winter. Breathe in. There is snow, fluffy and white, encircling the pond, but the ice is clear. Breathe out. Wind cannot disturb the ice; it can only blow snow across the surface. Sun can melt the top of the ice, but never all of it. I am the frozen pond._

With some enhanced degree of calm, Anderson returns her thoughts to the current situation. From the knowledge she's been able to sniff out, it seems unavoidable to conclude that there is a link between Red Pharma and the Hall of Justice that goes deeper than just a few fancy Tek gadgets. Her disappearance could not have been so neat without direct involvement from other Judges acting on Red Pharma orders. Someone had retrieved her gear and filled out her paperwork. Someone had approved it in the face of all existing protocols. Perhaps even Control had fed her the location of the ambush intentionally. Restlessly, she moves from her perch on the bed to the video screen displaying an image of Mega-City One bathed in the orange light of late afternoon. For a year the view had brought comfort and certainty, had served as a tangible border between the Judges, the Good Guys fighting for order, and everyone else.

A knot in her stomach clenches at the thought. The bastards are inside, now, and still walking around unscathed. Someone would have told her if they had been identified, apprehended. It would be an event impossible to keep silent once it came to light. The Judgment given to a bent Judge is exponentially worse than what a Civilian could receive, equally justice and warning to any who might think on the merits of straying from the narrow path of the Law. The deaths of Judge Lex and his squad had been dictated by an immediate need for her and Dredd's survival. If captured, her assailants would be breaking rocks on Triton or Mimas for the rest of their unnaturally extended lifetimes.

None of this is what she wants to be thinking about now, her first night back. How can she think of anything else, iron willed discipline or not? How can she do her duty if she can't depend on Control or trust her backup? Will someone try something inside the building itself? Does she have to worry about being jumped in the cafeteria? The showers? Is she just being paranoid, weak and afraid of ghosts and shadows? It's not impossible that the matter ended with her rescue, but she can't bring herself to believe that. Why would they, whoever they are, have a change of heart this late in? It's impossible to know for sure. She knows nothing about who, or what, she's up against. That must be remedied, and quickly. _Tonight_. The thought bubbles up unbidden. Tomorrow she will be back on duty; her name has been added to the list of patrols. That is when people will expect her to be out. Tonight they are either ignorant or expecting her to take a rare quiet night off. Maybe she could catch them unaware, find a leak that hasn't been quite stopped up. Any action is preferable to wearing out the linoleum and thinking dark and impotent thoughts.

Having reached her decision, Anderson moves quickly, shedding the black tee-shirt and shorts for her newly issued street uniform. The leather suit whisks on in a moment, leather hugging her shoulders and hips like an old friend. She sits on the edge of the bed to lace her boots, cobbling together a workable plan in her head. Information first: her friends in Control are valuable. She could go pay them a visit; that would be a fairly innocuous thing to do her first night back. They might know something, or know someone who saw or heard something slightly unusual. If they have nothing, and that's fairly rare in her experience, she could potentially try to leverage her psychic abilities to find something. A thought or memory, an intent. She would feel guilty about it, yes, horribly guilty about a breach of privacy she had promised herself she would never act on, but there had always been an assumption on her part that she had nothing to fear from her colleagues. Having been proven so wrong about that, it might be time to reevaluate her blanket respect for the privacy of those around her, just until she can more accurately target where the true threats lie.

A knock on the door disrupts her thought process. Instinctually, she moves towards her 'Given, slung in its holster over the back of her chair. Halfway to her feet, she stops and pulls a face at her paranoia. If someone here wanted to hurt her, they wouldn't advertise their presence by knocking first. "Who's there?"

"Dredd."

A smile quirks her mouth before she can quite stop it, some strange pleasure in her partner's action. It balances the frustration at having her roughshod plans messed up so early in their execution. She trusts Dredd the way she cannot trust anyone else. Foolish sentimentalism, but it's nice to feel slightly less alone. Hastily she knots the last lace and pushes open the barrier, looking up at the impenetrable black visor and taking in the unmistakable fug the streets mixed with a spicy sweet smell of peanut sauce. A flash of bright blue surprise slashes across her awareness of him, followed by a quiet patina of resignation edged with satisfaction. Like so much else, the relay of thoughts spikes her curiosity, but Anderson ignores it. "Hello, sir." _Is that too formal? Crap._

"Going somewhere?"

"Um, just to visit some friends?" _Nice job sounding extra guilty,_ she lectures herself. "What brings you to this part of town, sir?" She has zero hope that such an elementary distraction technique will work on Dredd, but it's better than quailing under his scowl like an idiot Cadet.

"Good to know you're not acting in defiance of explicit orders your first night back." A muscle by his mouth flexes as though itching to drop the perpetual scowl.

_Is he making a joke_? The possibility boggles her mind. Anderson shakes her head firmly, "Wouldn't dream of it, sir." It's a great temptation to peak, see if Judge Dredd is actually amused at her response. She recoils from the thought. She won't do that. _Not to him._

"Good to know," He replies dryly, and holds up the white bag with slashed lines of red characters down the front. "Come with me."

Anderson takes a moment to consider the command, before stepping out into the hall and sliding the door shut behind her. She has to stretch her legs to keep up with his brisk pace, once again pleasurably aware of her restored physique. Living with atrophied musculature, even for a single day, had been a humbling and miserable experience. "Where are we going?"

"Not far," Dredd answers simply, turning down another warren-like corridor in Housing, numbered apartments blurring together. He walks in silence down the hall before halting before a door identical to all the others. He knocks once, and then pushes the door open without waiting for a response.

Anderson has to balance on her toes to see over Dredd's shoulder. Another plain room, though subtly different from the others she has seen. There appears to be a real window looking out over Mega-City One, sealed tight against the smoggy air, but a real view. A framed certificate sits on the wall, curly writing recognizing the promotion of one Barbara Hershey to Senior Judge, and a blank frame hangs beside that, awaiting some future content to display. Edging around Dredd, she can see the Senior Judge huddled over the data screen on the desk, thin shoulders bunched under the standard black tee-shirt.

"Hershey, dinner." Dredd's growl breaks the silence and the grip the data screen has on Hershey's attention.

Judge Hershey jerks her head up, lifted above the cloud of strategy and logistics by her old friend. "Hey Joe, and Anderson." She manages a tired smile at the mismatched pair. "I didn't hear you come in."

"Obviously," Dredd grumbles, crossing to the desk and dropping his burden on it, willfully ignoring the careful spread of papers. "You look like shit."

Self-consciously Hershey touches the bags under her eyes. "Thanks ever so much." She scowls up at her friend, employing an elbow to nudge him away from the delivery. With ruthless efficiency she empties the bag, stacking steaming cartons and chopsticks with military precision, folding the empty bag and placing it off to the side. "You're a lifesaver, you know. I don't think I could stomach the mess-hall tonight." She takes a carton of slippery garlicky egg noodles and digs in, gesturing Anderson away from the door with her occupied hands. "Come in. Sit down. Eat."

Anderson obeys, taking the last lonely carton as Dredd absconds with the box smelling strongly of sweet peanut sauce, arranging herself on the floor and digging in. She has to agree with Dredd's assessment that the other woman looks like she's been through the wringer. She can feel the stress radiating off Hershey in sickly grey waves, turning the rich noodles to lead in her mouth. "Are you alright?"

Hershey looks a bit nonplussed at the question, then shrugs it off and swallows her current mouthful. "Just reaping the harvest of ambition." She glances at Dredd for some secret signal before continuing. "I'm leading Riot Squad 4 out first thing tomorrow. Mutant population is going nuts down by the barrier."

Dredd scowls into his carton, "They're going to run out of Riot Squads by the end of the week, the way they're going."

"Let's hope not." Hershey pauses to slurp down some more food. "It seems unrealistically stupid for Mutants to instigate a Block War, but that's what it looks like to me. Sectors one through twelve are reporting similar incident rates. Mass mobilization might be the only way out."

"Does anyone know why the Mutants are acting out?" Anderson asks delicately.

"None," Hershey shakes her head. "Though it might not make any difference if we did. The Law takes a rather inflexible view on vigilante justice and civil disorder." She gives the junior Judge a speculative look. "Do you have any insights about it?"

Anderson gives herself a moment to bite down on her first defensive response and let the sudden heat in her face disperse. "I've been out of touch for the last few weeks." She reminds Hershey, trying to hit an even tone, and failing. It's infuriating to have her allegiance questioned, to be considered a representative of the entire Mutant population. "And I haven't lived with them in almost fifteen years."

"Of course," Hershey nods calmly.

"It sounds like the time for negotiation has passed, if Riot Squads are being deployed." Dredd observes. "Verbal negotiations, anyway."

"You can call them thugs," Hershey points out acidly. "It won't hurt their feelings any. But they're our thugs, and we're going to need them the way things are heating up." She sighs and refolds the half full carton. "We're hoping that a show of force is enough of a deterrence to keep everything from boiling over."

"A little hope is a dangerous thing," Dredd shrugs ambivalently. "Do you think it will work?"

Hershey takes a deep breath and exhales slowly. "No. If we had jumped on this in the beginning, we might have had a chance. It's festered for too long now, the Citizens are too antsy and it's rubbing off on some of the Judges." She gives Anderson a serious look. "There's a lot of anti-mutant sentiment floating around. It's entirely possible you'll be targeted. Be careful."

Anderson nods slowly. The warning removes a large element of uncertainty, the threats are still real. She's not crazy, she will stay vigilant. "Thanks."

"Hope it helps. Stick with Joe, don't take any stupid risks."

Dredd grunts, "That goes double for you, Hershey. This would be a shitty last command."

Hershey wrinkles her nose and sticks the leftovers in the tiny refrigeration unit. "You bet your ass. Hope I don't see you out there any time soon. Now scoot, I have an early day tomorrow."

"Good night," Anderson lets herself be shepherded out of the apartment with as much dignity as she can hold on to. For a moment she wonders if Dredd and Hershey are going to make a night of it. They had been partners once, and against her better judgment she has listened to some of the rumors which linger despite their long separation. Her seniors exchange nothing more than comradely slaps on the shoulder before Dredd joins her in the hall and the door whooshes shut behind him. _Of course the rumors would be completely unsubstantiated. Dredd's probably never even considered breaching the Monastic Code_. And she's being an idiot for getting all worked up over it. She's better than this. Cautiously, she glances up at Dredd, hoping that he remains entirely ignorant of the bizarre half formed thoughts dancing through her mind. "Well, good night, sir. Thank you for the noodles."

"You don't fool me that easy, kid." Dredd grates, intercepting her attempted exit. "What stupidity were you planning on getting into your first night back?"

The black visor's empty stare offers no room for negotiation or half truth. Word on the street is that Judge Dredd can smell a lie on a person, though Anderson suspects it's just prolonged exposure to all the different tells humanity has. A small difference when confronted with his demand for truth. "I wanted to find who Red Pharma has on the inside." She stares at the floor and mutters without moving her lips.

Dredd touches Anderson's arm, nudging her forward. "You were just going to start asking around?"

"Not just start asking around," Anderson retorts with a touch of defiance.

"Yeah, right." Dredd grunts, "Hershey tried to follow up on your resignation. She was served an official warning for her trouble."

Anderson pauses in surprise. "I didn't know that. I'm sorry."

"For what?" It comes out in a snort of disgust. "The point is that no one is going to tell you anything. Every aspect of this is sealed tighter than a gas leak in an incinerator." He draws her up short at the door to her new room. "Go get your gear."

After a moment's pause to recall the new key code, she punches the digits in, with the peculiar feeling that Dredd's just memorized the code from observing. "Where are we going?" She slips inside, lifting the armored vest from where it hangs on the closet door and strapping it on, grabbing the belt with LawGiver from the chair. She fits it around her waist and trails back out into the hall.

"On patrol. Get the feel of the Street back under your boots. See if those nice new Tek muscles are good for anything useful."

Anderson refuses to let the compliment, if that's what it is, distract her from the current argument, though she files it away to fuss over in some future quiet moment. "Sir, I can't just drop this like everyone else. With all due respect, you weren't the one kidnapped and screwed with. How can I trust the orders I'm given in these circumstances?" Anderson skips a step to keep her balance against another small push and glares at him. "Just what is your problem, anyway? I'm not on assignment until tomorrow afternoon."

"If you intend to spend your night off getting into trouble and disobeying Herpert's direct order you'd be better off on active duty." Dredd retorts and keeps the pace punishingly fast until the door to the LawMaster garage shuts behind them. Only then does he grab Judge Anderson by the collar, lifting her to her toes. "My partner vanishes one day, is kept imprisoned and tortured, and the entire Justice Department turns out to be a part of the cover up. All attempts at Justice, at bringing the shits who did this to answer for their actions are rebuffed or penalized. How do you think that feels?"

Still distracted by the comment about her physique, Anderson is caught completely off guard by Dredd's sudden rage. The proximity to the violent emotion swamps her momentarily, the sheer need to act overwriting her own anxiety. With some difficulty she separates herself from the tempest, and swallows, feeling the pressure of his leather clad fist against her neck. "Remarkably similar I would imagine." She responds with as much levity as she can muster. It's indisputably nice to know that someone is taking this as seriously as she is.

"You have no idea," Dredd grumbles, easing the girl back to her feet. "Or maybe you do." He adds as an afterthought.

Anderson shrugs the comment off; it's not a useful statement and certainly doesn't merit a response. Her bike, or one close enough to her bike so as to be identical, is sitting in its charging station a few spots over from Dredd's heavily used LawMaster. Happily she brings it to life with a touch, tubes retracting and engine's throaty purr building in volume and timbre. The saddle feels right, much more preferable to balancing on the tail. Affectionately she slaps the side and looks over at Dredd. "Lead on," she hollers over the twin roar of engines. His only response is to shift gears and peel out and she follows him gleefully.

They weave around the night traffic, Dredd keeping a length ahead as his GPS homes in on the latest coordinates from Control. He pulls up sharply before a shabby school building and cuts the engine.

Anderson hops off her bike and joins him on the approach up the low concrete steps. "What have we got?"

"Surveillance picked up significant black market activity. Go in, grab the vendors, seize assets, and shut it down. Standard procedure."

"Sir, this building has more than two exits."

Dredd nods briskly, "Central activity has been seen in the gymnasium, on the east side. Floor plans indicate there are only two routes of egress there. You circle around to the outer door, catch the runners."

"Got it, do we need to call the transport wagons?"

"Yeah. See you on the other side." Dredd checks his equipment one last time and slips up the lower steps into the dark building.

Anderson waits a beat, for the feeling of his mind to fade in the distance before returning to her bike and navigating around to the easternmost side of the building. A single weak streetlamp casts a watery pool of light over the heavy steel door separating the interior of the school from the alley. Pressing herself against the icy metal, she can just about hear the sound of bustling trade going on, feel the chaos of a couple dozen minds vying for bargains, searching for hard to find necessities or luxuries, all tinged with the fear of discovery. Studying the layout, there's not much to be done on her end. The door makes for a natural funnel, restricting the number of people who could escape at once, and the footing in the alley is treacherous, slippery with waste fluids. "Control, this is Judge Anderson. Requesting transport wagon for two dozen to my location."

Control's voice trickles back through the communicator. "Alright, Judge. Someone will be there in fifteen minutes."

There's nothing to do now but hurry up and wait. Anchoring is a vital job, but one that Anderson hates. Better to be the one flushing perps out than the one waiting outside. It takes a moment to adjust the position of her bike to seal the alley, and then nothing until action kicks up inside. She huffs a small sigh, senses pricked. A faint smell of aerosol catches her attention, a reliable sign of vandalism. Slowly, she eases herself in the direction of the scent, zeroing in on a small pool of shadow at the other end of the alley. Closer, she can hear the whoosh of paint expelled through a can and the quiet shuffling sound of sneakers on paint. Her Lawgiver comes up, brilliant white light harshly illuminating the youth adding dark flourishes to the gleam of fresh paint spelling 'Kill the Muties' in elegant jagged script. A shiver of fear works its way down her spine and takes up residence in her stomach, but it cannot be let to interfere with her duty. "Halt Citizen! You are charged with the crime of vandalism…"

The juve doesn't give her time to finish, throwing the paint canister at Anderson and legging it toward a hole in the chain link fence sealing the far end of the alley.

It's a good throw, but neither fast nor strong enough to prevent Anderson from snatching the projectile out of the air and tossing it back at the runner. With his back turned to her, the canister finds its mark, connecting solidly with the back of the vandal's head. The boy goes down like a ton of bricks, and Anderson picks her way after him delicately, dragging her creep back to her choke point and cuffing him to a conveniently placed pipe. She can hear the turmoil inside now, and readies a tube of foam.

Dredd's voice crackles in her comm. "Anderson, get in here!"

He doesn't have to say it twice. The heavy door is rusted shut around the edges, but a few good kicks loosen it up enough that Anderson can drag it open and trot into the half lit interior. Amid the overturned stalls, it's easy to spot Dredd looming over a dozen prostate merchants. "Sir?"

"Runner," He jerks his head toward a dark door on the far side. "No obvious armaments."

Anderson runs, hopping over the impromptu hurdles and darting into the dark hall labeled 'Locker Rooms'. Her night vision acclimates as she runs, making sense of the shadows cast by the dull orange emergency lights. The hall twists and turns, and she slows to a steady jog, casting out for any trace of human mind. Unhindered by things like darkness or line of sight, she locates the worried mind and presumably its arrest-resisting body closely attached. No longer running, just hunched in a dark corner, waiting for the fuss to die down to make good an escape.

Slowly, delicately, Anderson crosses the floor slippery with damp, and pauses before a shower stall before kicking the flimsy plastic door inward. Her bad luck, the creep is pressed against the far wall and manages to avoid the impact of the door, though the sound of it slamming against the adjacent wall echoes through the room, bouncing and amplified off tile walls. The perpetrator throws a harsh beam of white light into Anderson's face, blinding her as he swings a small dark object around to her head. _Sometimes a helmet seems like a really good idea_, Anderson reflects, eyes slitting against the agonizing light; right now life would be a lot simpler if she was wearing one. _Too bad_.

Seeing intent painted in bright bold colors in his mind she blocks the blow to her head and slaps the light to the floor. Still dazzled, she has to guess at the target's collar, but gets lucky, securing a comfortable handful of material and slamming her forehead into his nose. A helmet would have made it more effective, but her creep goes down like a load of bricks, leaving her to blink the dancing shapes and not-quite colors out of her vision until she can see clearly. Satisfied with her actions, more or less, she wedges the light into her belt and cuffs the man by feel, before dragging him back toward the gymnasium, his boots squealing against the floor the entire way there.

She arrives in time to see the Transport drivers escort the last of the more obedient black market vendors outside. Brushing a strand of errant hair out of her face she finishes her slog with the limp man and passes him out to Dredd. "Got him."

"Good," Unceremoniously he drops the creep onto the floor of the transport wagon and addresses the drivers. "This one's a poacher. See to it he gets his dues."

"As you say, Judge. Just fill it out on the paper and we'll pass it along." The driver pulls a long clipboard out of the front of the Transport wagon and passes it to Dredd, who doesn't miss a beat passing it along to Anderson.

Dredd's loathing of paperwork would have to be seen to be believed, Anderson decides, scribbling in the basic details where prompted, adding the descriptor of 'Poacher' to the bottom entry and then remembering her little vandal and flipping over a new leaf to add that entry. Hastily she sketches her signature and returns the paperwork to the driver. The boy is still where she left him, groaning and whining and trying to rub the lump on the back of his head where his spray can had connected. "Vandalism for this one." She undoes the cuffs from the anchor and passes the wriggling juve into the driver's stolid custody.

"Is it on the board?" The driver accepts the boy warily. Too often you get judges trying to sneak one past without the proper documentation.

"Yes. Thank you for your assistance." Anderson smiles sharply and waits until the truck rumbles off. "I guess Hershey wasn't joking about the anti-Mutant sentiment." She waves her newly acquired light in the direction of the graffiti.

Dredd regards the painted blemish for a moment. "No. She wasn't. It'll get worse, too." He jerks his chin in the direction of the exit. "Let's go."

The night progresses on in much the same fashion. Petty crimes abound, but by and large the city does not seem any more on the precipice of war than normal. Life goes on for the vast majority of the Citizens, but then how is that different from any other night? Even the taint of violence in the air, though entirely worthy of investigation, is still depressingly normal. Its presence practically defines a night patrol.

"Bad feeling coming from the left." Anderson speaks to her glove comm rather than try to outshout the howling wind. She accelerates sharply, drawing even with Dredd and jerking her head in the general direction she senses the trouble. Her sense of urgency builds as she speeds down the street, the bright city lights blurring in her haste. It pulls her onward, heedless of street signs and changing neighborhoods, building to a nearly unbearable crescendo. Tires send up blooms of smoke as she brakes hard, sliding the last several meters, locking her bike and sprinting around the decorative fences which prevent anything more cumbersome than foot traffic from accessing the scenic walkway. The picturesque scenery is wasted on her as she runs, rounding a bend and bursting through a grove of artificial trees in a shower of leaves and flowers. The strength of feeling warps her vision, dyeing the six men before her in the crimson spectra of rage and hate and pain. "Citizens of Mega-City One! Throw down your weapons! Step away from the victims!"

As a group they freeze, hesitant in the face of her sudden entrance and Judge's uniform. The one caught mid kick wobbles, and restores his balance by awkwardly aborting the blow. Sticks lower, halfway, and they regard the Judge with curiosity but no overt fear. From within the center of the mob, a half-formed cry of pain, animalistic yet still entirely human, emanates forth, equal parts groan and scream.

The kicking man turns his attention away from Anderson long enough to lash out with his foot into the middle of the huddle. "Shut up, bitch! Don't you make that sound when your betters are around! Don't you say a fucking word!" He looks up and catches Anderson's eye somewhat guiltily. "Sorry about that, Judge. Didn't mean to disturb anyone."

"I said step away." Anderson hopes that the authority rings as loudly in the air as it does in her head. It's a knack she hasn't quite mastered. Hopefully Dredd is lurking nearby, they appear to be compliant, for creeps, but that's the sort of thing that can change in a heartbeat. And they're big men. Big, armed violent men.

"Do what the lady says." The largest orders sharply, holding shovel sized hands in worn biking gloves out in what he probably thinks is a peaceful gesture. He takes two slow, deliberate steps away, glaring until the others comply and shuffle a slight distance away.

Two small figures huddle together, leaning inwards as though their bodies are too heavy to hold up independently. Limbs cradle awkwardly, and it takes a moment for Anderson to spot the third lying motionless behind them. People, clearly, too small to be men, too large to be children, wrapped in dirty mismatched rags from hair to ankles. It's all too obvious whose pain and desperation had drawn her here. The agony of every broken bone, dislodged joint, the anguish of loss and desolation, hopelessness, batters down the carefully made barrier, courses through Anderson until she can feel them, becomes broken mutant women huddled together for one wretched moment of eternity. And their rage, Impotent in weak broken bodies, but anger great and terrible at their assailants, at the useless men who would talk and talk and do nothing, at the faceless blond bitch in the Judge's uniform who sees and does nothing. Who would not hear them. At a city that loathes them like fleas.

The rage throws Anderson back into her body, shivering against the onslaught and hoping it doesn't show. "What the hell is going on here?"

Steel pipe man starts to speak and is shushed by Giant. "We found these Mutie bitches, sorry, females in our building, Judge. We have families, children, most of us, and we want them to be safe."

Steel Pipe reasserts himself. "My brother; his little 'un up and vanished a few days ago. He figures, and I agree, that it was the Muties who stole her. They can't have babies of their own, you know, what with the radiation frying their gonads to crisps, so they steal them from us folk."

"You let me do the talking, Stan." Giant scowls and then gives Anderson a politely apologetic look. "Sorry, Judge, but it's true. We noticed kids, babies even, disappearing around when the Mutie raids really picked up. I know they're female, and it looks real bad, but wouldn't that be why the Muties would send them over? Who but a female would know which babies are best to steal?"

"So on some vague suspicion you took these women and beat them to death?"Anderson growls, "Assault is a grave crime, Citizens, including assault on Mutants, and is punishable by five years in Iso Cube. Vigilantism is punishable by up to ten years. Come peacefully and your good behavior will be noted for future considerations." Just once, it would be nice if the speech works the way it's supposed to.

In the back of the group, two men whisper furiously, before one speaks aloud. "Say, are you that Mutie Judge?" The inquiry causes a ripple of unpleasantness to stir through the group. "Only, I heard that the one Judge in Mega-City who dun't wear a helmet is a Mutie, and she dun't wear a helmet so she can mind-control people better."

"Don't be stupid, that's just a lie some kid made up for why he ratted Jersey Dave out."

"Get on the ground, put your hands on your head and shut the fuck up!" Anderson snarles, the scream leaving her throat raw. "Control, I need a transport wagon for six at my location right now." She directs this command to her glove more quietly.

"Do as she says." Dredd's voice slices through the clearing like a laser through butter.

At his appearance, the men lose their surety, and slowly sink to the ground in submission. Only the conspiracy theorist persists in talking. "But what if she's mind controlling him too? She could be in on it…" A stunning round crackles through the air, finding its mark in the speaker. He convulses and falls silent.

"Anyone else have any pointless speculations to air?" Dredd asks ominously from behind the barrel of his Lawgiver. The five men shake their heads negatively and drop carefully to the ground.

Anderson uses the rote process of cuffing the men to try and regain control. The extraneous feelings ebb slightly, and she manages to quiet the tremors in her hands. She finishes the task under Dredd's view, and reluctantly approached the small sad huddle still slumped motionless on the synthetic turf. Her stomach turns as she squats beside the two vertical women, their terror and agony choking in her lungs. With as much gentleness as she can manage she examines the extensive damage done. Three of the four eyes between the pair swollen shut, broken nose and fingers, dislocated shoulder, missing teeth, the list goes on and on. A terrible feeling builds inside.

"What's your judgment?"

Anderson stands carefully, mindful of the unconscious woman sprawled out. "These women need a doctor, not a sentence."

"A crime has been committed, Judge Anderson." Dredd states neutrally. "Mutants out of bounds is a crime. Justice must be served."

Noise roars in Anderson's ears, she fights to hear herself over the sound. "We have no proof that they are Mutants, sir, just the word of these Citizens. And if they are, so what? They've been punished far more harshly than the crime warrants. We should secure transportation for them back to their homes. They're not in any condition to get there on their own."

Dredd grunts noncommittally and waits in silence until the buzz of a hover car fills the air. "Transport. Up you get, creeps." A grim shepherd of justice, he gets the dejected perpetrators on their feet and marching toward the hover car. "I'll be back for the Mutants."

Anderson watches the retreating backs disappear through the artificial trees. "We're going to get you home." She tries to be reassuring, but it's like talking to stone. Nothing she says can get the women moving. "We're going to have to carry them." She informs Dredd and the driver accompanying him. "Their injuries are too severe. Driver, please drop them off at the nearest Barricade checkpoint, make sure the guards there know to get them home. Tell them it's an explicit order, if they give you any shit." Electing to ignore the looks of nonplussed disgust she kneels beside the unconscious woman, watching sharply as Dredd lifts the sitters to a vertical position, arranging them securely around the sturdy truck driver before joining Anderson beside the unconscious Mutant.

"Get her head." He orders flatly, settling his grip under the woman's arms and knees. "On my count: one, two, three…"

Anderson cradles the head neck and shoulders, standing on his sign. Or she tries to. Vertigo swoops down on dark wings, a connection stirs and she is overcome entirely. The woman is in her head now, silent no longer, every pain every thought every hope every need reverberating through Anderson's skull. It's exponentially worse than the sensations that drew her here, more intimate, more horrible, devouring her sense of self, erasing the line between the empath's mind and the rest of the world until everything comes pouring in, swirling into a single wretched typhoon and the judge collapses, falling backward onto the prickly plastic grass.

Darkness ebbs around her, and Anderson's consciousness returns slowly to her prone body. Grasping her pounding head, she rolls to a sitting position. With quiet groan, she begins the uncomfortable series of tests ensuring her physical integrity: moderate head pain and a sick taste in her mouth, but otherwise fine. Rolling to her feet she glances around, eyes drawn to a dark Dredd-shape sprawled in the grass a few feet from where she had lain until a moment ago. She drops down beside Dredd, hastily checking his vital signs: heart rate, blood pressure, respiratory rate, all within the acceptable parameters. She hesitates for a moment before lifting his head carefully and easing the visor up to check for pupil dilation.

He grumbles as she lifts an eyelid, slapping the invasive hands away. "Hey, get off." His grumble slurs and he blinks rapidly, reaching up for his helmet and jamming it back in place.

"You get off," Anderson scowls down at her patient. "I remember moving those Mutants, and then I woke up on the grass. What happened?" Her head throbs again, feels too full, feels shaken like a well crafted synth-tini. She bites back another groan, pressing her fingers into her temples, waiting for the feeling of normalcy to return. Slowly the pieces slip back into place, neurons reorienting themselves, finding original paths again but refusing to coalesce into anything tangible.

"I don't…" It comes back in flickers and moments. "Her name was Marla…" He trails off, trying to fight the moments of sensation into order. "I don't know how to explain it."

"Maybe you don't need to," Anderson offers her hand tentatively, slowly and carefully as though the senior Judge might startle and run off. She gives him a questioning look, waiting until he nods once in allowance. She closes the distance between her gloved fingertips and the exposed part of his cheek and lets the thrill of feeling move through her like an ocean tide. It's the other half of a message, intended for one but delivered to two by accident. She listens and observes, fitting the two halves together into a single tale of the woman's sojourn in search of her son and justice. When the memory stops, she withdraws her hand, but not before picking up a brief flicker of feeling she's entirely certain Dredd didn't mean to share. It's just another secret for her to hold; another complexity in their relationship to pretend to ignore. She will not let some juvenile, unspoken feeling from either of them complicate this superb partnership.

"What is it?"

"A message," Anderson states simply. "It got split up, scrambled, when we touched her. She was looking for a Mutant, I think she found us instead."

"A secret Mutant message?" Dredd tries not to sound overly skeptical.

"Maybe, maybe she didn't even know she was doing it. Maybe she didn't even realize she had special psychic ability." Anderson stares at the ugly fake grass pensively. "Judges don't patrol past the Barricades, you know. She went to them about the kidnapping of her son. They turned her away. Then her niece vanished. Then other children." She laughs, a harsh empty sound. "They thought the norms were snatching them up. Snuck over the wall to find them."

Dredd nods, comprehending how the flashes and feelings he felt shoved into his mind could be cobbled together with some missing information to construct such a narrative. It might be true, but it might not. Too much time on the streets has made him suspicious of sob stories; a woman who could shove thoughts into the heads of others was by no means guaranteed to be honest. It had felt honest, real and raw though. Still, he wouldn't put that level of detail past a talented psychic. "Do you think she was telling the truth?"

"Yes," Anderson affirms, carrying the quiet knowledge that whatever Dredd might purport to think, he believes it to be true as well. "Why else would a woman risk what they did except for a child?"

Dredd gives a noncommittal grunt, far be t for him to speculate on why a woman would risk anything. It's all quite beyond his experience. "So if the Mutants are losing their children, and the Citizens are losing their children, where the hell are the kids?"

* * *

The man works late, sorting through reports and the other bureaucratic humdrum that encapsulates his life these days. The call for lights out echoes against unadorned walls, and the harsh white light dims in the universal sign for the end of the day. The man bids goodnight to his aide, waiting until the door whooshes shut to pile the day's paperwork on one side of the desk and reach into the deepest drawer in his desk for a small thermos. He's a hard man, unafraid of danger and violence, but his hands shake slightly as he pours a finger's worth of clear liquid into the mug of cold synth-caf. He drunks the vile bitter burning stuff with resignation and relief. His hands stop shaking. He powers on a small vid screen, and begins keying in a long series of scramblers and encryptions. Then he dials a number. It beeps twice, and then the screen glows white.

"What do you want?" The voice from the small speaker is heavily distorted, synthesized to make audio identification impossible.

"The loose ends have been tied."

"Have they?"

It is difficult to tell the original tone, but the man thinks his associate is unimpressed with the news. "Levison and his people are dead. The Judges involved concluded the investigation and found nothing, as anticipated. The girl..." Fatally, he hesitates.

"Old news," The voice echoes crisply. "I saw Levison's termination myself, a week ago. He had his instructions, though I find it depressing he couldn't clean it up a bit more neatly. Tell me something I don't know. What did you decide to do with the girl?"

Did he dare lie to the unidentified voice on the other side? Better to get the ugliness over now. "She's been in Medical this last week, to start in her original capacity once healed."

"Her original capacity? You mean out in the streets?" The voice does not sound amused. "Surely you can see where that might cause some concern, especially since this is exactly what I told you I didn't want happening. Wouldn't some nice safe desk job have been preferable? She's been in so many close calls already, poor thing."

The man rolls his eyes and sincerely hopes the other conspirator hasn't found some way to unscramble the visuals. "Neither of us want someone like her with that sort of internal access. If you think what she's stumbled over here is bad, well, it doesn't even bear mentioning."

"All organizations like ours have plenty of skeletons for an errant visitor to trip over." The voice agrees carefully. "And yet, perhaps it is for the best. It's so… dangerous out in the streets of Mega-City One. Just about anything could happen."

"It might be suspicious if even more befalls her too suddenly." The man warns, "She's visible, popular. She's a good judge, and even some of my superiors are watching her with great interest. They will notice patterns, and they will be in a position to follow up inquiries that a regular Judge could not."

"You're talking about McGruder? Or that cretin Dredd?"

"Dredd's no superior of mine." The man growls, "He's just a favorite of the Chief Justice."

"Yes, yes. McGruder's little doggie who bites when she barks. He's irrelevant in all this. McGruder gave you an order, and you're just following through on the spirit in which it was issued. And I am assisting you with the realization of that very important task. Dredd is nothing in all this. He doesn't have half the knowledge the girl has to expose us."

"She has nothing." The man replies shortly. "Nothing that can be substantiated. Her death would achieve nothing. She may yet have further use as a prototype."

"Did I say anything about killing her?" The voice sounds superficially shocked. "I don't believe I did. And I don't know quite how you have any idea how you could guess what use she might have in our work, but I appreciate the consideration."

"I just meant-"

"I said I appreciated it, didn't I?"The voice is deceptively mild sounding. "You're correct, incidentally. Our body of knowledge is sadly lacking in some regards. Having access to her again could be useful, though we're exploring alternative paths to curing our ignorance. Thanks to what we did gain from her, though, we've managed to cobble together a neat little remote scan for Mutants carrying the X-4723 gene."

"Remote scan?"

"The Muties with those special abilities we're so interested in, psychics and such, they carry the X-4723 gene. It impacts the irregularity of brain frequency emissions that the carriers broadcast, and thanks to the help of our guest last week, we got a basic prototype going. We're running preliminary tests this week."

"So it lets you find the psychics hiding in a population?" The man struggles to wade through the information presented.

"That's the theory. I'll let you know the results of our first batch, just in case the 'grow your own' approach falls through. It'll help us get replacement subjects for related tests at bare minimum, and might be a cute little toy to keep your geeks entertained sometime in the future."

"All right, do you think you'll have any idea about the timelines for a first batch?"

"Wouldn't dare make a guess at this current junction." The voice sound quite nearly cheerful about it. "It all depends how the sprogs take to lab work. Best case should be within a week or two, we'll have some real progress to report. Maybe a month after that we should have something, or if you prefer, someone, to show off. I'll call you."

The video screen goes dark in the man's hands, and he casts it aside in favor of more bitter burning gin straight from the flask. What had his life gotten so bloody absurd?


	8. Chapter 8

_A/N: Greetings Citizens! This post comes to you from sunny Las Vegas, and is nearly as ad hoc and last minute as the location implies. Needless to say, even less editing has been performed than standards permit, and any glaring flaws you can comment on will (probably) be corrected this week. Consider it an unofficial, non-binding oath on my behalf. _

The Riot Squads move out at dawn and everything continues as normal. Anderson watches the bulging armored cars roll out on her video feed, and receives her first official assignment since her return: Vehicle Monitoring in the Business District. A quick glance confirms that the issuer of the assignment is the same Judge who has issued all of her Vehicle Monitoring shifts. With some disgruntled muttering, Anderson suits up. It would be nice to know if this Judge Petty gave these assignments due to some intrinsic belief that monitoring and ticketing parking ordinances is the anchor of civilization, or just a way of taking some unknown vengeance on Anderson in particular or street Judges in general. The result is all the same in the end. Protestors might flock to the Barricades to wave signs and hurl insults, but Anderson will ensure that no one will speed on their way there, or flout emissions regulations or use metered parking without paying for it.

It's more than just regulations enforcement, too. As a Judge on duty, Anderson has an implicit directive to maintain law and order in her surrounding area, extending well past her explicit assignment. It's still surprising to her that there are criminals who don't regard the presence of a uniformed Judge at a deterrent. Some of them are thrill seekers, the danger of a Judge's presence adding excitement to what must be a terribly dull life. Others are just stupid, or inobservant, or crazed on drugs. They all keep her extremely busy as the sun moves through the sky into the late afternoon. A message comes through on her comm as Anderson's slapping the cuffs on red-fingered looter. "Is there a transport nearby? I got a creep who needs transport, and I'm not waiting an hour this time."

"Negative, Judge. Transport's all tied up, there's a drop point about three blocks west of your current location. Leave him there, if you like, and then report back to Control."

"Roger Control, is backup inbound?"

"Negative on the backup. Your priority is reporting ASAP."

Anderson shakes her head in disgust and cuts the contact. She's sure as hell not balancing this surly creep on the back of her bike for three blocks, but neither is she walking. Priorities. Roughly, flirting with brutality, she cuts the cuffs off and glares down at the lucky bastard. "Consider this a warning, dick-brain. I catch you with loose fingers again you're going to get cubed until your beard is long enough to tie in a noose. Got it?" The man doesn't wait for her to finish before sprinting off, sliding through a slimy brown puddle and disappearing down an alley out of sight.

_Priorities, ugh_. She just let an unquestionably guilty criminal go free for what, personal convenience? Expediency?_ You're slipping_, she grumbles at herself. _Just because other Judges are shifting focus is no excuse for you to follow suit_. Heavy with grouchiness, Anderson returns to her LawMaster, easing her way through the perpetually congested traffic and fearless pedestrian swarms. Miles away she can see the glint of sunlight on the golden Eagle of Justice. A person can stand anywhere in Sector 13 and see that eagle crowning the 300 story mega-structure, if they know exactly where to look. Urban legend goes that the eagle can see then too, and always knows exactly where to look. Anderson knows better, of course. A single, predictable, fixed point is a poor shadow of the Justice Department's actual surveillance capabilities. It's still a good metaphor for the Law, and a sight that has brought her comfort on many return trips from arduous shifts on the Street. Today, it's not comfort she feels as the monolith grows on the horizon, a regal monument standing tall around the foothills of barracks and garages, dwarfing the local Mega-Blocks in terms of sheer scale.

Standing by the great granite steps leading to the main entrance, she can no longer see the Eagle, even the point of the badge is holds in its talons is obscured by the protruding bronze cast over the door. It's still there, still watching and the short hairs on her neck prickle as she parks her bike on the nearly empty street. It's always watching, somewhere in the back of her head the merciless eyes of the law look out, judging her…

_Stop. Deep breathes_. She's tired, out of practice with the late nights and long days, but mere exhaustion can only linger at the edges of discipline and whatever the kitchen drones put into the protein squares. It has to be something, amphetamine or caffeine or some other upper to keep her in this state of prolonged hyper-alacrity. _Or maybe it's just nerves_, she tells herself sternly. _Nerves you're not going to feed with absurd delusions of paranoia. There are important people with important orders waiting on you, so hurry up!_ Feeling slightly foolish, Anderson hurries up the majestic steps, stopping only to submit to the full body scan which releases the mammoth glass and brass doors. Not waiting for them to fully open, she slips in as the gap widens and makes a beeline for the first available desk attendant. "Anderson, reporting in."

The desk judge looks as tired as Anderson feels, albeit in a cleaner, more pleasant smelling sort of way. One handedly he types the commands into his console, feeling around a cluttered desk for a half-full mug of black synth-caff. His hand tremors as he transfers the container to his mouth, the first signs of stimulant overdose, perhaps, and his adam's apple yo-yo s energetically as he gulps, and removes the mug from his mouth only to speak briefly. "Anderson, Cassandra. You're requested to report to floor 300, room 00-A." He taps a button sharply. "Second elevator on your left will take you up." The empty mug thumps softly on a stack of printed reports and he returns the full of his attention to the holographic charts, images, reports and everything else on the expanse of air before him.

Anderson doesn't wait around, happy to seek refuge from the sensation of fraying string that permeates the lobby. Rarely does she stop to think about the duties Control Judges have in the course of their day to day crises. She's a street Judge, tough and violent, out getting her boots dirty fighting crime up close and personally. The desk judges, sitting in their safe climate controlled environments, with plenty of coffee and easy access to bathroom facilities, are worth only brief dismissal, not 'real' Judges. It's an uncomfortable assessment to re-evaluate in this proximity to the frazzled thoughts of so many small manipulators, each doing everything in their power to watch, instruct, and guide the boots on the ground to ensure the best possible outcome is achieved. The elevator stands patiently for her arrival, doors closing after her and terminating the sensation abruptly. The trip 300 floors up offers ample time to reflect on her own thoughts, and she wonders just who in Central she's supposed to report to. It's a piece of information that would be nice to know, give her some time to try and guess at the next order of business or assemble her thoughts into a coherent report. As it is, all she can reasonable assume is that whomever she's reporting to will be extremely important; they don't stable dog's bodies on the top floor. Well, maybe the most important ones: division heads, council members, diplomatic liaisons. The elevator ticks up through the early 200s and Anderson resigns herself to the unknown. Whoever she's directed to, however shiny their badge of rank, she'll deal with them as she does with all other obstacles, and get back out to work with all due haste. Gently she pops the loathsome helmet off, tucks the offending item under her arm as the elevator dings open at her destination.

Carefully she steps into the hall, lined with endless closed doors. That same desperate uncertainty lingers on the edge of her awareness here, muffled by the thick doors separating her from the thinkers in their offices. Fates are being decided behind those doors, the fates of citizens, mutants, Judges; the fate of the city, suspended on threads of belief, order, law, and chaos. Anderson moves on, past deserted desks where secretaries had been evicted to some greater functionality than guarding the doors of the great and important. Down at the end of the hall, standing guard at the mouth of the labyrinth, the last one waits, haughty and dignified. "Anderson reporting in."

The man clicks his tongue as he scrolls through the list of appointments that is his sacred duty. "Better hurry in then, girl. They don't have the time to be kept waiting."

Slipping past the desk, Anderson makes a face and trots down the hall. The offices of dignitaries flash past. Heavy doors made of real wood show the status here and shiny brass plates bearing the office number tick downward. The minds here are silent, asleep or gone or so tightly constrained by long years of diplomacy and polite internal warfare. Office 00 waits at the end: Chief Justice McGruder's private workspace. She can just vaguely remember being escorted here once before, a long time ago, but she has not been back since. McGruder has not called for her presence, though she feels certain the Chief Justice has someone keeping an eye on an experimental Judge. But no, McGruder's legendary corner office is not her destination today, and she walks past the beautifully carved red wood door, turns a corner and confronts a metal door stamped with 00-A. After the opulence of the previous gateways the severe black metal strikes her as severe and foreboding. She's letting her imagination get the best of her _again_ and this is definitely not an optimal time for fantasy. _Focus_. Adjusting her grip on her helmet, she knocks sharply on the door, metal ringing musically under her fist. The sound fades and silence hangs heavy in the hallway. There's no way anyone inside could have missed the noise of her knock, repeating the disruption will gain her nothing. It feels perverse to wait outside her destination while there are things she surely could be doing elsewhere. Action calls to her much more loudly than patience, but she perseveres. Orders brought her here; orders will keep her here until orders send her away again. That is the discipline of a Judge.

The door swings open silently. With a quick, deep breath Anderson enters the windowless conference room, squinting to make out the surroundings against the dim lighting. A giant half circle table dominates the room, with the faint outlines of five high backed chairs spaced evenly around the curved side. Spotlights scattered tactically around half the room center the brightest illumination on an empty piece of floor before the flat side of the table, casting deep shadows over the occupants seated within the recesses.

"Step forward, Judge Cassandra Anderson."

A nasal voice from the left side of the room speaks, and Anderson steps smartly into the pool of light, slitting her eyes against the glare. Everyone knows that the Council of Five is the leaders of the Judges; the most cunning and ruthless, the best that yesteryear had to offer. The rulers in everything but name. As a cadet, she had been required to demonstrate comprehensive working knowledge of the Council's occupants and method of operation. By and large she had deemed it useless trivia, and so had forgotten most of it before the test was graded and returned. When would such tidbits ever come in useful as a street Judge? _Right about now, as it turns out_. She thinks she can make out a faint gleam of light from the figure in the central chair, probably a reflection from McGruder's spectacles. It's probably a safe bet that Herpert is one of the remaining four, but nothing gives her any hint as to which one, and the other three are a complete mystery. _Forty percent? Failing grade right there._ Viciously she yanks her attention back to the current moment. A failing grade from several years ago is the least of her worries. "Judge Anderson reporting, sir."

"Do you know why you've been summoned before the Council, Judge Anderson?" That same voice speaks again.

"No, sir," Anderson replies blandly. She can feel the fives gazes pinning in her in place, scrutiny tinged with varying levels of curiosity, hostility, apprehension, and disappointment. It's extra incentive to hold her tongue; they'll get to their purpose without her extraneous input.

The central figure does not keep her waiting long. "At 4:30 this morning, the Mutants turned out in force, thousands gathering along the internal walls across all the sectors of Mega-City One." McGruder's voice for sure, how often has she heard that same voice making public pronouncements promising order, safety, and justice? "Do you know anything about this?"

Anderson adjusts her stance slightly, raising her chin in spite of the harsh light flooding down on her. _So this is what's so important_. "No sir, I have not had contact with any Mutants since leving the orphanage." Momentarily, her memory presents the Mutant gang in the alley with the Juve girl from several months ago and the expedition of women more recently. Dismissing the memories as irrelevant information, she inquires, more boldly than she feels, "Are the Mutants actually doing anything, sir?"

"Inciting Civilians to riot."

"Disturbing the peace."

"Not yet…"

The responses tumble out all at once from the council members, the combined cacophony of echoing sound and malicious emotion leaving Anderson faintly nauseous. What can she possibly say to that?

Before she can form a workable reply, another speaks. "You wouldn't have any idea what might have mobilized them, Judge Anderson? " A silky voice makes itself heard as the jumbled shouting fades. "Some reprehensible secret that endangers the lives of little Mutant children everywhere so long as their parents live in ignorance?"

It's such a shocking accusation that Anderson's mouth pops open before her mind can make up the lost ground in a frantic sprint and snap it shut. Deeply, sincerely she wishes she wishes she could see the faceless Judge who would charge her with such treason. Instead she does her best to memorize the surface feel of the mind, a writhing mass of snakes and intrigues, malice and cruel satisfaction. "I told no one of my discoveries relating to the anti-radiation drug known as Clavax. Sir." Curious, despite herself, she reaches out to get a pulse on McGruder's reaction to the absurdities. The old woman's mind is like graph paper gridded with razor wire. No surprise, though it's unlikely Chief Justice McGruder has ever been surprised by anything. She had allowed this trial, but refused to pass judgment before taking evidence. Anderson retracts her awareness, feeling only slightly guilty for the intrusion.

"Duly noted, Judge Anderson." A quiet voice makes itself known, not the one of her accuser, but no more welcoming for that. "However, you will understand that some of the Council sees a conflict of interest, given your… unique background. Do you have evidence to confirm your statement?"

She wants to laugh in the face of the questioner; not a nice, happy laugh, either. "I believe the evidence of Surveillance can confirm that I have not snuck off anywhere or met anyone unusual or sent any clandestine messages, sir. If you refuse the evidence of your own divisions, I have been partnered with Judges Dredd, Cleese, Margot, and Larson if you wish to question them about my time on duty. May I ask, sir, why a matter like this merits a trial before the Council of Five?"

"Thank you, Judge Anderson."McGruder's iron hard voice cuts into the conversation, covering the sound of someone tapping on a keyboard, though there is a distinct lack of glow from a screen to illuminate the note taker. "We received a special report on your actions two weeks ago regarding the judgment of six Civilian men and three Mutant women. In light of that, taken in tandem with the current escalation, there were members among the leadership who needed to see your loyalties for themselves before consenting to send you to the front lines in this conflict."

It's not surprising that there has been a 'special investigation' into her actions. If she gambled, Anderson would place a great many credits that this isn't the first time she's come under SJS scrutiny. It's just one more thing that comes with being a Judge. Along with the risk and the dress code is the absolute certainty that someone from Internal Affairs is always watching and reporting. "Are these leaders satisfied now?" She asks rhetorically. _Of course they won't be_. She sincerely doubts that this is just an innocent question and answer session, if this isn't a trial then it can only be a precursor to something worse.

"Mind your tone, Judge." The warning comes from the right side of the room; it might be Herpert's. "I believe what confuses the Council of Five is your reasoning behind keeping all this information to yourself. You ignored the proper channels for a sanctioned investigation into the medicinal counterfeiting. That is highly suspicious, but you did not share such abominable news with the Mutants, as we might have been expected. You expended great personal resource upon this private line of inquiry, and lost a good friend during your pet investigation, facilitated by personal relationships you forged with some of the junior Control Judges." He pauses, "If they were in fact personal relationships and not something else."

That is too much of an insult to let pass without comment. "Sir, I strongly resent those implications." Anderson has to fight to keep her voice steady.

"Resentment noted," The voice that possibly belongs to Judge Herpert replies gravely. "Yet you must see how it might appear to those who doubt your intentions. How can you prove that you didn't go snooping around thoughts that were meant to be confidential? We can't prove that you did, otherwise you'd be in a very different situation, but it must be considered none the less. You were given an assignment by Control based on your personal curiosity. That is not standard operating procedure, and it is just as alarming as your refusal to go through the proper process."

Hopefully the harsh white lighting bleaches the angry flush out of her face, but that's probably too much to hope. "If I may offer a defense, sir?" She takes a deep, steadying breath and when no response is forthcoming, speaks. "Sir, I stumbled over the first Clavax facility nearly four months ago. I had nothing but a hunch that there was something wrong. Tek Division validated my suspicion, but who else would care? This wasn't some vaccine for the population as a whole, it would affect only a small portion of the Mutant population; a group that was no more popular back then than it is now." Anderson tries to adjust her tone to something slightly less hostile. "There was no private investigation; there was nothing to go on. I thought it was a fluke, a one off counterfeiter working small margins in a single location. Of course that proved to be untrue as more of the facilities were discovered, by others besides myself, I would like to add. I found patterns, consistencies between the sites I was able to visit and I passed my observations on to Control. Nothing more."

"But why maintain silence after it become obvious that there was more?" The silk voice is still horrible even with the malice edged out by curiosity. "Surely the Muties would want to know about the extent to which they were being cheated, poisoned, and lied to?"

Anderson shakes her head slightly, refusing to be influenced by the colorful choice of wording. "Perhaps they would, sir, but I believe many of them would prefer their false hope left intact. And even if they didn't want that, what would they do?" She clamps down on the boiling cauldron of feeling under her ribs. "Write angry letters to the manufacturers? Riot? Call down more violence on their community? It would be a massacre. If the problem could be fixed without informing the Mutant Community I thought that would be for the best."

"That was not your call to make, Judge Anderson." McGruder's reprimand cracks like a whip, but there's a curious lack of emotional coloring in the statement. It's a warning and a bit of showmanship for the other four Judges sitting on the Council, but Anderson can gain nothing beyond that. "However, I believe that sheds some degree of illumination upon your actions. Does this satisfy the Council? The actions of Judge Anderson must have consequences, but that cannot be our priority at this time."

"I don't like it," The unrecognized voice on the left sounds petulant. "Even if she is telling the truth, the picture given is one where a Judge keeps the Mutie elements in the forefront of her priorities. YES YOU DO," The voice is raised in a shout as Anderson's mouth parts in protest. "By your own admission, you considered the Muties' well-being as a primary determinate in your analysis and behaviors. It wasn't a motivation of following the rules or bettering the City at large, just undue concern for an irrelevant segment of the population."

"Be mindful of your tone, Judge Councilman. This is a private audience of the Council and will be afforded the appropriate dignity." The ice in McGruder's voice lowers the temperature in the chilly room even further.

There's a sound of dignified behinds shifting uncomfortably in dignified chairs, but the speaker continues unapologetically. "No, Chief Justice. This must be addressed directly. We are Judges here, all of us; we cannot shy from the truth because it is uncomfortable to ask or to hear. This is not a usual Judge, these are not usual circumstances. She has confessed that her actions are in line with the flexibility you have decided to grant her by coincidence, a lucky happenstance that did not force her to choose between the people she grew up around and her profession. There is nothing in her statement that gives me the confidence that if forced to choose, in a moment between shots fired, that she would choose Justice. If this gathering of Muties breaks out in riot, some of them will die. Can you say with all honesty that you could stand with your fellow Judges on that ugly little wall and kill your kind to defend the law?"

The anticipation in the Judge's voice is obliterated by an odd, shout-y sort of pressure that makes Anderson's inner ear ache. It takes a moment to commit more strongly to her mental defenses, cutting away the easy surface awareness of the other five minds before she can grasp the sensation. It's peculiar, worried and edgy and definitely the result of a conscious intent. The precision, emotion, intent and message repeat with mechanical monotony: _Be careful. Don't say anything stupid. Give them no more ammunition._ Sparing a quick glance at the shine on McGruder's spectacles, Anderson has the curious sensation that the Chief Justice is trying to send this message telepathically, working with theory and stubbornness. It's a unique first experience, not something she would have thought a Norm capable of thinking. Then again, there has to be a reason that McGruder was made Chief Justice and not merely a well rounded resume. It's still an interesting experience, and one she wishes she had more time to explore now. Instead it is an uncomfortable distraction, though the warning is appreciated.

"Did some aspect of the question confuse you, Judge Anderson?" The voice of silk rejoins the conversation, gentle and sweet and dripping with contempt.

Some backburner part of Anderson's mind notice that the hand gripping her helmet is trembling. _Adrenaline. Perfectly normal._ "Sir, this will not be the first time I've had to face Mutants with lethal intent. The only thing I don't understand is t what end this interrogation is for. My loyalty to the Law and the principles it embodies is absolute. I would like to think I have proved this numerous times in the last year, and I will prove it again today, if allowed. I understand your concern with knowing the deepest thoughts of my heart, but that is a risk you take with all the Judges out performing at this moment. We all have our private biases, but what Judge would let personal racism dictate how they carried out their duties?"

"She's prevaricating."

McGruder snaps over the quiet sigh of impatience from beside her, "This bit of theatre has gone on long enough, Judges. Whatever doubts I harbored against Judge Cassandra Anderson when the issue was first raised, it is clear that there is nothing to be done in this moment to ascertain her guilt. We are wasting our time on this triviality and Judge Anderson's assignment is scheduled to depart in two hours, if she is to ship out with them we must decide now. I present to the Council of Five a vote of confidence in Judge Anderson's favor."

"Vote of no confidence."

"Vote of no confidence."

"Abstain."

"Vote of confidence."

The second vote of confidence is still hanging in the air as McGruder speaks, barely keeping the edge of surprise out of her voice. "A tie. Would you like to elaborate on your abstention, Judge Councilman?"

"No, Chief Justice, I would not." The voice that might be Herpert's replies firmly. "It is within my right to vote as such, and in my right to refuse explanation. You may proceed."

"As you wish, Judge. As is custom, in the times of tie during a Council vote, the verdict falls to the Chief Justice to determine. I maintain my position, vote of confidence, and release Judge Cassandra Anderson to her duty. You are dismissed, Anderson."

"Thank you, Chief Justice, Council Members." Her mind makes a stab at etiquette, guessing the approximate words to say, and her legs make good use of the distraction to beat a hasty retreat. The heavy door opens at her approach, letting a piercing sliver of white light into the dark chamber and she slips out into the blinding hallway, only half aware as the door shuts behind her.

_Breathe. You survived._ Anderson gives herself to the count of ten to stand still with her eyes clenched shut breathing heavily before forcing her eyes open and beginning her trot back down the hall. It's easily the least pleasant experience she's encountered as a Judge, doubly because it happened in the hands of her superiors. From the sounds of it, she's extremely lucky to have avoided a holding cube until the insanity outside was resolved. She shivers and makes double time to the secretary's desk. "Do you have an assignment for me?"

The secretary frowns and pecks away at his keyboard with steady determination for a long minute before answer. "Anderson, yes: report to Logistics, Area 32, Zone C. Your squad is there, prepping for a…." He trails off with a scowl as the display before him wavers and warps. "No, disregard that." He grumbles wordlessly for a moment. "A GPS location has been sent to your LawMaster, the intersection of Weaver Street and 246 North Avenue. Report to Judge Dredd immediately." With that he turns his prodigious attention back to the long queue of tasks awaiting his attention.

She nods wordlessly and trudges back down the way she came, back past the ominous doors, no longer remotely interested in the minds inside. She's had more than her fill of that today. Hurt and confused, she pulls her awareness inside; letting the mechanics of physical processes carry her back into the elevator and hold her upright as she descends and trudges back through the lobby, focus entirely on getting back out to her bike. A strange desire to run away grips her for a moment as the motorcycle purrs to life. She's not wanted here, not trusted. Whatever difference she could make, she'll never be able to grow beyond the limits of her blood. Slowly she kicks away from the curb, letting the tepid breeze push the doubts away. They're not really her thoughts, after all, deep in her core she knows she won't run away, won't back down because a few bigots in high command dragged her through the dirt to satisfy their loathing, tried to force a confession of treason from her. _They'll never get it._

Delicately Anderson winds her way around the side roads that guide arterial traffic to the different division buildings. Here the streets are in the shadow of the looming at all hours, existing in a perpetual dusk lit by bright street lights and the brilliant headlights of the LawMasters. There is precious little traffic on the road at this time, and Anderson eases onto her accelerator as the empty stretch of road improves her mood, letting the engine roar echo off the artificial canyon walls as she presses onward. The street soothes her, pulls her closer to her next assignment. Too soon she spins through a roundabout watched over by a disapproving bronze effigy of Order. She spares a quick glance to the ancient sculpture that scowls vaguely into space as Anderson hunches low over her handlebars and skids along the sharp turn down the branch that leads away from the towering monolith that is the Hall of Justice to the sprawl of Mega-City One's vast civilian expanse.

The streets are perpetually crowded here, personal pleasure crafts, trucks, busses, vendor carts and more all vying for the same slice of pavement. Anderson flicks the flashing lights on the front of her LawMaster and the press contracts to allow her to cut through, competition redoubling frantically in her passing to capitalize on the small opening she leaves in her wake. A bright blue light shines on the display of her LawMaster, and synchs with the display in her helmet, laying out a series of turns and stretches tugging her along to her destination.

With still a kilometer to go, according to the display, she comes to a posted guard on the road, three Judges and an armored street vehicle sporting one very serious looking turret. In the face of such firepower, she slows and halts within hailing distance. "Judge Anderson, Sector 13, en route to assignment."

One of the Judges turns slightly, and spares her a quick glance, the motion revealing a high powered rifle. "Go," he jerks his head to allow her access and returns to his original position, watching something out of her sight intently.

Even after this time, it's vaguely unsettling to drive through the wide line of fire of the rapid fire turret, passing through the check point and continuing her journey. A high mesh fence arcs over the road the rest of the way, but doesn't quite obscure the view of an enormous press of people on the other side. _How many people are gathering here? Hundreds of thousands? Millions_? Pointless speculation, she'll find out soon enough. The road terminates with an identical second check point, though this time she is given directions to leave her bike along the left side of the road and continue on foot. Under their watch, Anderson complies, turning her beloved motorcycle around and easing it back in line with its brothers. Clearly, she's not the first Judge to have received these instructions, and she walks past what probably totals three dozen bikes parked along the road, her destination a gargoyle-esque concrete building built in the shadow of the Barricade.

Removing her helmet to get rid of the persisting flash of the display and feel some cooling air against her sweaty skin, Anderson dangles the armor on hooked fingertips and saunters in through the reinforced sliding door propped open. The guards stationed on either side give her a brief but thorough check before admitting her past the anteroom. In the main room there are a lot of Judges sitting around impromptu medical stations, lounging with practiced patience on anything flat and sturdy enough to sit on, drinking, eating, resting. Waiting.

A harried young man in Tek brown scurries over. "Name? Assignment?" He doesn't wait for an answer, noting the identifier stamped on her badge and matching it against some internal metric. "This way."

"Anderson, assigned to Dredd's squad."

"Yes, yes." He brushes off the inconsequential details, pausing before a metal staircase and glowering at a trio of Judges who have occupied the area. "Not on the stairs, I said! Emergency egress must be kept clear! Go sit somewhere else, drink some boosters, take a nap but get off my damn stairs!" Without waiting for them to comply, he begins picking his way around the group, unperturbed by the angry mutters and rude gestures. "Basic safety precautions save lives, don't ever forget it, Judge." He pushes through the press of bodies on the second floor and halts abruptly before an empty chair. "Here, sit here. Someone will be by to check your conditioning in a minute or five. Quartermasters are on their way with gear." He bustles off as abruptly as he had inserted himself into her life, vanishing into the crowd of multi-colored uniforms.

Anderson considers the chair speculatively. She has orders to seek Dredd out immediately, but finding him in the press of bodies would be a mighty undertaking. It feels good to settle into the chair as plastic mesh yields slightly beneath her. It would be so easy to close her eyes and just… rest. But if she gives into that, what are the odds that she'll actually rejuvenate enough to justify messing with her internal clock? Anderson blows out a soft sigh and balances her helmet on her lap, glancing around at the other two dozen odd Judges sharing the area with her. Strangers, by and large, though maybe she recognizes a face from her time at the Academy. Many strange minds all focused inward, on suppressing anxiety of an unknown encounter or determined to milk all the comfort possible from the current situation. The dedicated scurrying thoughts of the Tek workers going about their small tasks and moving through them, towering over them, calm and controlled, a mind she's come to know quite well. Dredd stops a few feet from the chair she's occupying, and she can feel his scrutiny. "Reporting for duty, sir."

"Anderson," Dredd inclines his head less than an inch, but it still counts as a greeting, and a friendly one by his standards. "Has a medic been by to see you yet?"

"I'm fine," Anderson shakes her head firmly. For a day's shift, she's only collected the bare minimum of bumps and scrapes.

Dredd grunts in response, and then follows it with an articulated response. "It's going to be a long night. Riot Squad can't handle the masses. We're going up on the barricade in twenty." A Medic along the wall catches his eye, gestures furiously, and he moves off to continue his duty.

Anderson watches his progress idly, first with an older woman in Medic uniform, words inaudible over the susurrus of quiet conversation but visually distinct as a one-sided argument. At this distance she can just barely pick out Dredd's mind in the surrounding crowd, but whatever reaction he has to what the woman is saying is muffled by the impatience and anxiety and ennui filling the atmosphere. He delivers a verdict, mouth moving briefly in speech before walking on. He has none of the grace of the Tek flunky who had escorted her to this area and Anderson smiles to see the alacrity with which a path is cleared before him, Judges pulling boots and equipment out of his way, even getting up and moving to allow the infamous Judge Dredd to pass without trodding on them. A scruffy young man in rumpled Medic uniform cuts into her line of sight to crouch beside her seat and the Dredd's black street uniform is lost to her.

"Glove off, Judge," From his breast pocket the Medic pulls a small silicone finger cuff, takes Anderson's small calloused hand and fits the device over her exposed first finger. "Any injuries while on duty?" He relaxes visibly when she shakes her head negative. A light flashes on her fingertip, and he glances at his wrist display where diagnostic information scrolls past. Firmly he tugs the cuff off her finger and returns it to its place, half rising to pat himself down, searching a myriad of pockets by feel. "Ah, crap. Hey, Alex! I need a SuperStar!" A moment later a squat ovular projectile soars out of the crowd from an unseen source, arcing neatly until the Medic snatches it out of the air. Briskly he rips the clear membrane holding two soft bladders of fluid together. "This one is for you." Gallantly he breaks the seal on the container of clear fluid and offers it to Anderson. "And this one is for you, too." The murky fluid he shakes briskly, as it turns an unpleasant puce color and plops it unceremoniously into Anderson's ungloved hand. Muttering incoherently to himself, he pulls a slender pair of tweezers from behind his ear and extracts a delicate, nearly invisible membrane from the textured surface. "Slowly now, roll it back towards you."

With care, Anderson complies with the manipulation, trying not to shudder at the odd texture moving slowly across her skin as the Medic carefully rotates it without compromising the tiny clear piece of material. "What is this?" It's a question she finds herself asking more and more with every medical encounter. Not that she would expect to be answered honestly if a Medic was intending to give her something dangerous or experimental, but she'd probably be able to catch the lie. If the person administering it knew what was in it. _Not a comforting line of thought._

"Ahh, there you go." He stops the soft container from completing the last partial turn, watches it settle around the meat of the Judge's hand. With infinite patience and gentleness, he draws out the membrane, touches it to the exposed white skin of Anderson's wrist. The wick adheres, dissolves upon contact, and begins drawing the fluid in the container into Anderson's blood. "Basic saline solution infused with hyper-oxygenated RBCs in this one. The one in your other hand is water, or mostly water. Drink up." He looks up sharply as a call sounds over the general hubbub and darts off.

The Medic's departure leaves Anderson with little to do except drink her 'mostly' water, which turns out to be supplemented with an unpleasant mix of chemical electrolytes; the artificial taste persisting long after a mouthful has been swallowed. With only the faintest curiosity she watches the mostly-blood trickle into her arm through the wick dissolved into her skin, draining the container in her bare hand with surprising speed. It feels… well not like much of anything. But the potential is there, an unspoken promise not yet realized. A shadow falls over her and she looks up at the brown uniform of Tek Division, a brightly embellished Q on the badge over his heart.

"Special equipment, Judge." The squat, frowning Quartermaster sets an armful of gear down by Anderson's feet. "Ever done Riot work before?" At her negative he curses, a brief vocal purging of frustration. "It's basic stuff. Street armor is good, keep your helmet on when you're up there. People like to throw things when they get excited. Bricks, rocks, garbage, shit… keep it on. You also get a polymer shield; pick one up as you go through the door. I've been told you're going up top; keep an overlapped formation and you should be okay. They're bullet proof, too. You never know with these damn hooligans. Stun baton and extra rounds for your sidearm, not that a baton will help thirty feet in the air but they're standard issue and you never know. Utility belt?"

"Basic Street issue."

The Quartermaster chews on his cheek, and then nods without relaxing his surly expression. "You know the basics, then. There're more gas grenades here, sedative and inflammatory. No foam, Tek has cannons standing by. Wait on your squad leader before throwing anything, and make it count when you do. They're saying there's damn near a million of the shits out there, on both sides. Got it?"

It would be entirely inappropriate to roll her eyes at the lecture. "Yes, thanks." Anderson takes the secondary belt with as much grace as she can muster, and waits for the supplier to waddle off before standing and wrapping it around her waist, adjusting the hang to reduce the interference with her 'Giver's holster and primary utility belt. Breathing out a tiny sigh, she jams her helmet back on and clips the stun baton to an empty loop. Twenty minutes must be nearly up; if the slow tide of Judges completing their preparations and moving toward the exit is any indication. Joining the queue, Anderson allows herself to be drawn along, taking the bulky clear shield thrust at her as she passes through the door into the empty space before the Barricade.

The night has turned for the worst since she was last outside, the fog coalescing into a persistent cold drizzle that patterns her visor and threatens to drip down her collar. It halos the spotlights shooting sharp columns of luminance that gleam on the multitude of rain slicked surfaces and thrust up into the low heavy clouds with a silvery glow. In other circumstances, the unearthly lighting might be beautiful, but for right now all Anderson can see is how the distorted light compromises her vision, even enhanced through the visor of her helmet, how the water can make the footing on the high metal wall even more treacherous. Bad weather's an occasional hazard that every Judge must face occasionally, though she can appreciate the really awful timing of the storm. There had been a rumor going around that Tek had formed a partnership with some civilian meteorology specialists to try and pilot a weather control program for the city. It's a damn shame they couldn't have it together to ward this off.

She adjusts her grip on the light polymer shield, trying to shuffle into formation as Judge Hershey walks down the line, flanked by Judge Dredd and two other senior Judge Anderson can't place right away. The austere commanding officer has nothing in common with the stressed Judge she had shared noodles with a few short days ago.

The quartet reaches the front of the line, decently formed in the face of inspection and ready to queue by the narrow metal staircase that is their access point to the top. The three seniorJudges break off from their flanking positions behind Hershey and take up position on either side of the stair case, accepting riot shields from a runner and stand at attention, waiting.

Hershey's voice carries through the audio transmitters in the Judges' helmets, eliminating the need to try and out shout the local hubbub of activity. "Alright, boys. You've seen the crowds; you know why you're here. Don't do anything to set them off, but don't take any shit from them either and give 'em hell if they breach the peace. Judge Rodriguez and I are your commanding officers and line and Marcel and Dredd will be acting as secondary anchors. Move out!"

The rain falls heavier as two senior Judges line up before the staircase and Anderson fits herself into the lines forming behind them. There's a damp, clammy feeling in her socks, most likely psychological. Puddles are forming, splashing up as dozens of feet tromp forward, but certainly not enough to soak through the reinforced rubber soles of her shoes. She pushes the sensation away, letting it settle into the back of her mind with half dozen other distracting, unpleasant, _irrelevant_ sensations. She'll cope with them later when the duty in front of her has passed. The stairs loom before her, the backs of the Judges before her already ascending, and she joins them, monitoring her footing on the gridded metal. The traction holds for the climb, and she makes the hop from staircase to walkway easily, moving out of the way for the Judge beside her to cross.

The walkway is narrow, four feet across in total, just enough for two people to stand back to back, thirty feet high with only air to separate the walker from a faller. The metal grate thrums under the pressure of so many feet, and Anderson keeps herself from looking to see if it's rusted through anywhere. Material was added t the Barricade on a near constant basis, but mostly in the form of garbage or scrap metal. If there's any maintenance performed on the structure, she has no idea and tries to think of other things.

There is much to think about, as she turns her head slightly and is confronted by an ocean of people, pressing as close as they can to the scree-covered base of the Barricade on the Mutant side of the wall. The Quartermaster had claimed there were millions. She has to doubt the validity of the assessment, but there are a very many great deal of people out here, standing silently in the pouring rain. As far back as she can see, to the left and the right, all people dressed in loose, sodden rags wound into cloaks and hoods, waiting. It's an unrelenting press of minds, and she wonders if there are any psychics present. Statistically unlikely, but with a sampling this big, who could know for sure? A spotlight rotates, throwing harsh shadows into a crowd that does not react to such sudden brightness. It gleams along lengths of chain, pieces of metal cut and edged into impromptu weapons. _An unacceptable threat of violence, but not one they've acted on. Yet._

An uncomfortable, wiggly feeling makes itself felt in her guts as she stares over the amassed Mutants. She had sworn before the Council of Five that her loyalty was absolute, that she would do any and everything required to uphold the law. Must that include massacre? It's all very well that she has been provided additional stunning rounds, but the cannons, stationed at tactically shadowed points along the wall don't fool her. Riot level countermeasures were only the first step in what could easily become a much longer game. _A little late to worry about it now_, she chides herself and falls into place beside the Judge in front of her.

The strange Judge on her left gives her a quick glance, and smirks. "Nervous, rookie?"

There's nothing to be gained from escalating the question, this is probably the worst possible place to make an enemy, particularly one who shares your defenses. Anderson shrugs and overlaps her shield with his.

The stranger takes her silence as assent. "You'd have to be defective to feel anything else right now."

They're probably meant to be words of comfort, she decides after a moment's consideration. The men on her left, on her right, may be strangers, but they're Judges too, and up here on this awful night for the same damn reason she is. A pressure on her back causes Anderson to go tense, lowering her center of gravity and pushing back in a moment of panic before her common sense picks up the mind of her partner, another stranger, and the firm desire to take his place at her back. Awkwardly she shuffles forward an inch, two inches, the edge of the platform disturbingly close already, and receives a grunt of thanks from behind her in response.

Craning her neck, she can watch the walkway fill with a steady stream of paired Judges, just making out what is probably Dredd's helmet taking position at the end of the line. His presence reassures her slightly, and she breathes out a slow puff of air, misting in the chill air. Time passes, and they wait. Eyes fixed ahead, Anderson can only hear the ebb of the crowd of Norms behind her, restlessness and unhappiness waxing and waning by the moment. It is a good and proper standoff that no one wants to break first.

It's horribly tedious, and her legs start to tingle with numbness as the cold and damp finally settle in, aided by the long stretch of motionless standing. Anywhere else she could stretch her legs, walk around, or shift her weight from side to side. She can't do that here, and has to settle for wiggling stiff toes around in her socks. It doesn't help much. It's hard to imagine how long they'll be expected stand here, but can guess that it will be until something decisive happens, or a second group is put together and the logistical maneuvers are completed. Both options seem to be unthinkably far in the future.

"Hold steady," Hershey's voice barks in the audio unit of her helmet. Something on the Norm side must be happening, but for all she strains her neck, Anderson can see nothing past the black helmet of her partner. There's a distant sound of shouting, chanting maybe. She turns her attention back to the Mutants, still calm, still waiting. The man at her back shifts and Anderson checks her balance. A clamor goes up, much closer this time and she feels her shield partner's attention waver to the distraction behind them.

Something heavy clubs into Anderson's kidney, sending pain arcing through her core, burning along her nerves. She turns, hampered by the shield's contact with the formation, and drops it as instinct drives her to reach for her 'Giver. Before her fingers make contact with the pistol grip, another more powerful blow to her shoulder sends her reeling back towards the edge, arms pin-wheeling for balance in the tiny space. Her hand slaps against her neighbor's shoulder, not hard but more than enough to upset the precarious positioning she has achieved and she stumbles, back foot hitting nothing as she goes to her knees.

The stranger looks over, face unreadable behind his mask, "What the hell-oh, shit!" He grabs her hand tightly, tugging her back away from the edge and is joined by the Judge who had backed Anderson, helping her back onto more solid ground.

"I got her," The Judge assigned to stand behind Anderson jerks his chin roughly at the gap in the Civilian side of the defenses, not moving from Anderson's side until the Judge to her left moves into the vacant space. "Sorry about that, Judge. It's a bit tight up here." Cautiously he scoots to the side and offers his arm to Anderson to help her to her feet.

It takes a moment to regain her composure, and she studies the stranger who had so nearly killed and then saved her. Small, sturdy, like a hundred other Judges she has passed in the Halls of Justice every day. A flicker of stray light illuminates the name carved onto his badge. Her boots skitter on the grate, and she takes the proffered arm, letting him pull her smoothly to her feet.

The momentum carries her over his thrust out thigh and only an instant of psychic awareness saves her from being pitched several feet from the wall to her death. As it is, she reads the moment when he commits to the action, and twists like a cat in midair, abdominals protesting this sudden and undesirable use. The arc of her fall is altered, and she goes up instead of out, the frayed edge of the grate coming up to meet her with dreadful speed. She catches the impact on her forearms by sheer luck, adrenaline surges pushing away the discomfort as a jagged spar tears through the protective outer armor. She scrambles for grip, digging her fingers into the narrow spaces between the bars of the walkway. Her right hand slips, but her left holds tight.

She looks up, up, _up_ into the blank face of her assailant, loose hand prying at the holster that holds her Giver. Years and years of training hold firm as she finds the faithful weapon and draws it. It's not fast enough, and a sharp snap kick to the head, even with her helmet on, leaves her half stunned and slow. Committed to the motion, she brings it up to fire, still blinking away the small bright suns dancing in her vision.

He sweeps it away with another kick, hesitates just a millisecond second and then stomps on her clenching hand.

Far away, Anderson is aware of the weapon falling, falling. _Loss of primary weapon is an automatic fail_. Far below, a fight breaks out amid the Mutants fighting over the sudden gift from Heaven. It's all secondary as time slows; bringing the heavy reinforced boot down with dreadful inevitability onto the one lifeline that holds her to the Barricade. Bones crunch, are ground underfoot, and the hand releases of its own volition.

Judge Anderson falls, holding the eyes of her assassin the entire descent, until a fireball blooms up to meet her closely followed by the pavement. Her head connects with the unmoving concrete, and her helmet saves her life, cracking and rolling away as the force of her landing carries her deeper into the seething crowd. Feet stamp around her, and she curls around her ruined hand protectively, thrashing viciously as a man falls stunned over her legs. Her right ankle screams in protest, but she kicks the body away, grabbing the loose robe or cloak from his shoulders and throwing it around herself. Down in the press, underfoot, her only fate is to be trampled to death in the riot. Cannons crack through the air and fire blooms in the night and Anderson regains her footing and scuttles off into the crowd.

Dredd misses the first half of the scuffle, caught up in trying to monitor a thousand different elements at once. Hershey's hiss of rage distracts him, and in his peripheral vision he watches a slender body in a Judges uniform tumble through the air. "Switch," he orders, and Hershey obeys, executing a carefully precise move as she takes his place and he takes hers. Not that it makes a difference, as the body disappears from sight.

"We have to hold," Hershey growls, her voice pitched too low to carry to their neighbors. "You can't help her now."

"I know," His control slips and he speaks in a tone alien to his ears. He can't see much, just the single, unknown Judge standing where there ought to be two, and then the man is silhouetted by a brilliant orange fireball.

"Hold position!" Hershey's voice barks through the comm in his helmet. "Load stunning rounds and pick your targets. Fire on my command." A stone whistles past her ear, descending into the mass behind her. A rifle pops in answer. "Fire!"

Dredd shoots automatically, counting on his years of training and wealth of tightly massed targets to do the aiming while his mind spins numbly. A small dark object rolls along the front of the press, kicked along by hundreds of feet. A small battered Judge's helmet, black covering cracked from brow to neck. It hits him with a terrible weight that Cassandra Anderson is gone again.


End file.
